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THE LOST CABIN MINE 



THE LOST CABIN 
MINE 


BY 

FREDERICK NIVEN 

M 


NEW YORK : JOHN LANE COMPANY 
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 


MCMIX 




LIBRARY of CONGRESS 


TwoCouiss Received 

MAh 30 10U9 


CopyrUM i-ntry 

HLm. 30, Hi'? 

CLASS OlJ No. 


Copyright, 1908, 
John Lane Company 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 


TO MY SISTER 







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Contents 


Chapter Page 

I. Introduces ‘‘The Apache Kid” with whom 

Later I become Acquainted .... i 

II. Mr. Laughlin Tells the Story up to Date i 2 

III. Mr. Laughlin’s Prophecy is Fulfilled . 20 

IV. I Take my Life in my Hands . . . . 34 

V. I Agree to “ Keep the Peace ” in a New 

Sense 40 

VI. Farewell to Baker City 49 

VII. The Man with the Red Head .... 58 

VIII. What Befell at the Half-Way House . 66 

IX. First Blood 82 

X. In the Enemy’s Camp 99 

XL How it was Dark in the Sunlight . . 115 

XII. I AM Held as a Hostage 123 

XIII. In which Apache Km Behaves in his 

Wonted Way 134 

XIV. Apache Kid Prophesies 147 

XV. In which the Tables are Turned — at 

Some Cost 155 

XVI. Sounds in the Forest 16 1 

XVII. The Coming of Mike Canlan .... 174 

XVIII. The Lost Cabin is Found 186 


via 


CONTENrS 


Chapter Page 

XIX. Canlan Hears Voices 197 

XX. Compensation 2 1 1 

XXI. Re-enter — The Sheriff of Baker City 224 

XXII. The Mud-Slede 236 

XXIII. The Sheriff Changes his Opinion . . 248 

XXIV. For Fear of Judge Lynch 257 

XXV. The Making of a Public Hero . . . 263 

XXVI. Apache Kid Makes a Speech . . . . 273 

XXVII. The Beginning of the End 279 

XXVIII. Apache Kid Behaves Strangely at the 

Half-Way House to Kettle . . . . 288 

XXIX. So-Long 299 

XXX. And Last 308 


The Lost Cabin Mine 


CHAPTER I 

Introduces “ The Apache KidT with tVhom Later 
I Become Acquainted 

HE Lost Cabin Mine, as a name, is 
familiar to many. But the true story 
of that mine there is no man who 
knows. Of that I am positive — be- 
cause ‘‘ dead men tell no tales.” 

It was on the sixth day of June, IQCX), that I first 
heard the unfinished story of the Lost Cabin, the 
first half of the story I may call it, for the story is 
all finished now, and in the second half I was destined 
to play a part. Of the date I am certain because 
I verified it only the other day when I came by acci- 
dent upon a pile of letters, tied with red silk ribbon 
and bearing a tag “ Letters from Francis.” These 
were the letters I sent to my mother during my 
Odyssey and one of them, bearing the date of the 
day succeeding that I have named, contained an ac- 
count, toned down very considerably, as I had 
thought necessary for her sensitive and retired heart, 

I 




2 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


of the previous day’s doings, with an outline of the 
strange tale heard that day. That nothing was men- 
tioned in the epistle of the doings of that night, you 
will be scarcely astonished when you read of them. 

I was sitting alone on the rear verandah of the 
Laughlin Hotel, Baker City, watching the cicadi 
hopping about on the sun-scorched flats, now and 
again raising my eyes to the great, confronting moun- 
tain, the lower trees of which seemed as though trem- 
bling, seen through the heat haze ; while away above, 
the white wedge of the glacier, near the summit, 
glistened dry and clear like salt in the midst of the 
high blue rocks. 

The landlord, a thin, quick-moving man with a fur- 
tive air, a straggling apology for a moustache, and 
tiny eyes that seemed ever on the alert, came shuffling 
out to the verandah, hanging up there, to a hook 
in the projecting roof, a parrot’s cage which he 
carried. 

His coming awoke me from my reveries. 

“ Hullo,” he said ; “ still setting there, are you ? 
Warmish? ” 

Yes.” 

“You ain’t rustled a job for yourself yet?” he 
inquired, touching the edge of the cage lightly with 
his lean, bony fingers to stop its swaying. 

I shook my head. I had indeed been sitting there 
that very moment, despite the brightness of the day, 
in a mood somewhat despondent, wondering if ever 


INTRODUCES “THE APACHE KID^* 


3 


I was to obtain that long-sought-for, long-wished-for 
*‘job.” 

Been up to the McNair Mine?’' he asked. 

I nodded. 

‘‘The Bonanza?” 

I nodded again. 

“The Boorman?” 

“ No good,” I replied. 

“ Well, did you try the Molly Magee?” 

“ Yes.” 

“And?” he inquired, elevating his brows. 

“ Same old story,” said I. “ They all say they only 
take on experienced men.” 

He looked at me with a half-smile, half-sneer, and 
the grey parrot hanging above him with his head 
cocked on one side, just like his master’s, ejaculated : 

“ Well, if this don’t beat cock-fighting ! ” 

Shakespeare says that “what the declined is he 
will as soon read in the eyes of others as feel in his 
own fall.” I was beginning to read in the eyes of 
others, those who knew that I had been in this roar- 
ing Baker City almost a fortnight and was still idle, 
contempt for my incapacity. Really, I do not believe 
now that any of them looked on me with contempt ; 
it was only my own inward self-reproach which I 
imagined there, for men and women are kindlier than 
we think them in our own dark days. But on that 
and at that moment it seemed to me as though the 
very parrot jeered at me. 


4 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

“You don’t savvy this country/* said the landlord. 
“ You want always to say, when they ask you : ‘ Do you 
understand the work?’ ‘ why sure ! I’m experienced 
all right; I never done nothing else in my life.’ You 
want to say that, no matter what the job is you ’re 
offered. If you want ever to make enough money 
to be able to get a pack-horse and a outfit and go 
prospectin’ on your own, that ’s what you want to 
say.” 

“ But that would be to tell a downright lie,” 
said I. 

“ Well,” drawled the landlord, lifting his soft hat 
between his thumb and his first finger and scratch- 
ing his head on the little bald part of the crown with 
the third finger, the little finger cocked in the air ; 
“ well, now that you put it that way — well, I guess 
it would. I never looked at it that way before. You 
see, they all ask you first pop : ‘ Did you ever do it 
before?’ You says: ‘Yes, never did anything else 
since I left the cradle.’ It ’s just a form of words 
when you strike a man for a job.” 

I broke into a feeble laugh, which the parrot took 
up with such a raucous voice that the landlord turned 
and yelled to it : “ Shut up ! ” 

“ I don’t have to ! ” shrieked the parrot, promptly, 
and you could have thought that his little eyes sparkled 
with real indignation. Just then the landlord’s wife 
appeared at the door. 

“ See here,” cried Mr. Laughlin, turning to her, 


INTRODUCES “ THE APACHE KID ” 


5 


** there 's that parrot o* yourn, I told him to shut up 
his row just now, and he rips back at me, ‘ I don’t 
have to ! * What you make o’ that ? Are you goin’ 
to permit that? Everything connected with you 
seems conspirin’ agin’ me to cheapen me — you and 
your relations what come here and put up for months 
on end, and your — your — your derned old grey 
parrot ! ” 

“ Abraham Laughlin,” said the lady, her green 
eyes flashing, “ you bin drinkin’ ag’in, and ef you 
ain’t sober to-morrow I go back east home to my 
mother.” 

It gave me a new thought as to the longevity of the 
human race to hear Mrs. Laughlin speak of her mother 
back east I hung my head and studied the planking 
of the verandah, then looked upward and gazed at the 
far-ofif glacier glittering under the blue sky, tried to 
wear the appearance of a deaf man who had not heard 
this altercation. Really I took the matter too seri- 
ously. Had I only known it at the time, they were a 
most devoted couple and would — not kiss again 
with tears ” and seek forgiveness and reconciliation, 
but — speak to each other most kindly, as though no 
‘‘ words ” had ever passed between them, half an hour 
later. But at the time of the little altercation on the 
verandah, when Mrs. Laughlin gave voice to her threat 
and then, turning, stalked back into the hotel, Laughlin 
wheeled about with his head thrust forward, showing 
his lean neck craning out of his wide collar, and 


6 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

opened his lips as though to discharge a pursuing 
shot. But the parrot took the words out of his 
mouth, so to speak, giving a shriek of laughter 
and crying out : ** Well, if this don’t beat cock- 
fighting ! ” 

The landlord looked up quizzically at the bird and 
then there was an awkward pause. I wondered what 
to say to break this silence that followed upon the 
exhibition of the break in the connubial bliss of my 
landlord and his wife. Then I remembered some- 
thing that I decidedly did want to ask, so I was 
actually more seeking information than striving to 
put Mr. Laughlin at his ease again, when I said : 

“ By the way, what is all this talk I hear about the 
Lost Cabin Mine? Everybody is speaking about it, 
you know. What is the Lost Cabin Mine ? What 
is the story of it ? People seem just to take it for 
granted that everybody knows about it.” 

“ Gee-whiz ! ” said the landlord in astonishment, 
wheeling round upon me. He stretched out a hand 
to a chair, dragged it along the verandah, and sat 
down beside me in the shadow. “ You don’t know 
that story ? Why, then I ’ll give you all there is to 
it so far. And talking about the Lost Cabin, now 
there ’s what you might be doin’ if on’y you had the 
price of an outfit — go out and find it, my bold buck, 
and live happy ever after ” 

He stopped abruptly, for a man had come out of 
the hotel and now stood meditating on the verandah. 


INTRODUCES ^‘THE APACHE KID^^ 7 

He was a lithe, sun-browned fellow, this, wearing a 
loose jacket, wearing it open, disclosing a black shirt 
with pearl buttons. Round his neck was a great, 
cream-coloured kerchief that hung half down his 
back in a V shape, as is the manner with cowboys 
and not usual among miners. This little detail of the 
kerchief was sufficient to mark him out in that city, 
for the nearest cattle ranch was about two hundred 
miles to the south-east and when the boys ” who 
worked there sought the delights of civilisation it was 
not to Baker City, but to one of the towns on the 
railroad, such as Bogus City or Kettle River Gap, 
that they journeyed. On his legs were blue dungaree 
overalls, turned up at the bottom as though to let 
the world see that he wore, beneath the overalls, a 
very fine pair of trousers. On his head was a round, 
soft hat, not broad of brim, but the brim in front was 
bent down, shading his eyes. The cream-colour of 
his kerchief set off his healthy brown skin and his 
black, crisp hair. There were no spurs in his boots ; 
for all that he had the bearing of one more at home 
on the plains than in the mountains. A picturesque 
figure he was, one to observe casually and look at 
again with interest, though he bore himself without 
swagger or any apparent attempt at attracting atten- 
tion, except for one thing, and that was that in either 
ear there glistened a tiny golden ear-ring. His brows 
were puckered as in thought and from his nostrils 
came two long gusts of smoke as he stood there 


8 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


biting his cigar and glaring on the yellow sand and 
the chirring cicadi. Then he raised his head, glanc- 
ing round on us, and his face brightened. 

Warmish,” he said. 

That ’s what, right warmish,” the proprietor re- 
plied affably, and now the man with the ear-rings, 
having apparently come to the end of his meditations, 
stepped lightly off into the loose sand and Laughlin 
jogged me with his elbow and nodded to me, rolling 
his eyes toward the departing man as though to say, 
“Take a good look at him, and when he is out of 
earshot I shall tell you of him.” This was precisely 
the proprietor’s meaning. 

“ That ’s Apache Kid,” he said softly at last, and 
when Apache Kid had gone from sight he turned 
again to me and remarked, with the air of a man 
making an astounding disclosure: 

“That’s Apache Kid, and he’s in this here story 
of the Lost Cabin. Yap, that’s what they call him, 
though he ain’t the real original, of course. The real 
original was hanged down in Lincoln County, New 
Mexico, about twenty-five year back. Hanged at the 
age of twenty-one he was, and had killed twenty-one 
men, which is an interesting fact to consider. That ’s 
the way with names. I know a fellow they call Texas 
Jack yet, but the real original died long ago. I mind 
the original. Omohundro was his correct name ; as 
quiet a man as you want to see, Jack B. Omohundro, 
with eyes the colour of a knife-blade. But I ’m driftin’ 


INTRODUCES THE APACHE KID ’’ 


9 


away. What you want to get posted up on is the 
Lost Cabin Mine.’’ 

He jerked his chair closer to me, tapped me on 
the knee, and cleared his throat; but I seemed fated 
not to hear the truth of that mystery yet, for Mrs. 
Laughlin stood again on the verandah. 

** Abraham,” she said in an aggrieved tone, there 
ain’t nobody in the bar.” 

Up jumped Abraham, his whole bearing, from his 
bowed head to his bent knees, apologetic. 

** I was just tellin’ this gentleman a story,” he 
explained. 

I ’m astonished at you then,” she said. An old 
man like you a-telling your stories to a young lad like 
that ! You ’d be doin’ better slippin’ into the bar and 
takin’ a smell at that there barkeep’s breath.” 

Mr. Laughlin turned to me. 

“ Come into the bar, sir ; come into the bar. We Ve 
got a new barkeep and the mistress suspects him o’ 
takin’ some more than even a barkeep is expected to 
take. I hev to take a look to him once in a while.” 

Mrs. Laughlin disappeared into her own sanctum, 
satisfied ; while the “ pro-prietor ” and I went into the 
bar-room. 

The “barkeep” was polishing up his glasses. In 
one corner sat a grimy, bearded man in the prime of 
life but with a dazed and lonely eye. He always sat 
in that particular corner, as by ancient right, morn- 
ing, noon, and evening, playing an eternal solitary 


10 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


game of cards, the whole deck of cards spread before 
him on a table. He moved them about, changing 
their positions, lifting here and replacing there, but, 
though I had watched him several times, I could 
never discover the system of his lonely game. 

‘*Who is that man?” I quietly inquired. He is 
always playing there, always alone, never speaking to 
a soul.” 

“The boys call him ‘The Failure,’ ” Laughlin ex- 
plained. “You find a man like that in the corner 
of most every ho-tel-bar you go into in this here West- 
ern country — always a-playing that there lonesome 
game. I ’m always scared to ask ’em what the rudi- 
ments o’ that game is for they ’re always kind o’ rat- 
house, — of unsound mind, them men is. I heerd a 
gentleman explain one day that it ’s a great game for 
steadyin’ the head. He gets a remittance from Eng- 
land, they say. Anyhow, he stands up to the bar once 
every two months and blows himself in for about three- 
four days. Then he goes back to his table there and 
sets down to his lonesome card game again and 
frowns away over it for another couple o’ months. I 
guess that gentleman was right in what he explained. 
I guess he holds his brains together on that there 
game.” 

We found seats in a corner of the room and 
Laughlin again cleared his throat. He had a name 
for taking a real delight in imparting information and 
spinning yarns, true, fictitious, and otherwise, to his 


INTRODUCES ‘‘THE APACHE KID^* ii 

guests, and this time we were not interrupted. He 
told me the story of the Lost Cabin Mine, or as much 
of that story as was known by that time, ere his smil- 
ing Chinese cook came to inform him “ dinnah vely 
good. Number Ai dinnah to-day, Misholaughlin, 
ledy in half-oh.’* 


CHAPTER II 

Mr, Laughlin 1‘ells the Story up to Date 

R. LAUGH LIN’S suggestion that I 
should go out and look for this Lost 
Cabin and, finding it, “ live happy 
ever after,” made me but the more 
anxious to hear all that was to be 
told regarding it. 

Well, about this here Lost Cabin Mine,” he said. 
“ There 's a little, short, stubby fellow that you maybe 
have noticed around here, with a pock-marked face, 
— Mike Canlan, they call him. He was up to Tre- 
mont putting in assessment on a claim he has in the 
mountains there away, and he was cornin’ along back 
by the trail on the mountains that runs kind o’ par- 
allel with the stage road, but away up on the hills, 
and there he picks up a feller nigh dead, — starved 
to death, pretty nigh. Mike gets him up on his 
pack-horse and comes along slow down through the 
mountain till he hits the waggon road from the Poor- 
man. There a team from the Poorman Mine makes 
up on him. That there fellow, Apache Kid, was 
drivin’ the team, and along with him was Larry 
Donoghue, a partner o’ his, with another team. 
They had been haulin’ up supplies for one of the 



THE STORT UP TO DATE 


13 


stores, and was cornin’ down light. They offer to 
help Canlan down with the dying man, seein’ as how 
the boss was gettin’ pretty jaded with all Canlan's 
outfit on its back, and this here man, too, tied on, 
and wabbling about mightj weak.” 

Laughlin broke off here to nod his head saga- 
ciously. From what has transpired since, I guess 
Canlan was kind o’ sorry he fell in with them two, 
and I reckon he wondered if there was no kind of an 
excuse he could put up for rejecting their offer o' 
service and continuin’ to pack the feller down him- 
self. Anyways, they got the man into the Apache’s 
waggon, and my house bein’ the nighest to the 
waggon road and the mountain, they pulled up at 
my door and we all carries the fellow up to a room. 
I was at the door. Canlan was sitting on the bed- 
foot. Apache Kid and Larry Donoghue was laying 
him out comf’able. The fellow groans and mumbles 
something, and Canlan gave a bit of a start forward, 
and says he : * There, there now, that ’ll do ; you ’ve 
got him up all right. I reckon that’s all that’s 
wanted. You can go for a doctor, now, if you want 
to help at all.’ There was something kind o’ strained 
in his voice, and I think Apache Kid noticed it the 
way he looks round. ‘ Why,’ he says, ‘ I think, seein’ 
as you,’ and he stops and looks Canlan plumb in the 
eye, ‘ seein’ as you found the man, you had better 
fetch the doctor and finish your job. My partner 
and I will sit by him till the doctor comes.’ Canlan 


14 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


looked just a little bit rattled when Apache Kid says, 
lookin’ at the man in the bed : ‘ He seems to have 
got a kind o' a knock on the head here.’ ‘ Yes,’ says 
Canlan, * I got him where he had fallen down. I 
reckon he got that punch then.’ And then Apache 
Kid looks at Larry Donoghue, and Larry looks at 
him, and they both smile, and Canlan cries out: ‘ Oh, 
if that ’s what you think, why I ’ll go for the doctor 
without any more ado ! ’ ” 

Laughlin paused, and, “You savvy the idea?’’ he 
asked. 

“ Not quite,’’ I said. 

He tapped me on the knee, and, bending forward, 
said: “Don’t you see, Apache Kid and Larry hed 
no suspicions o’ foul play at all, but they was want- 
ing to get alone in the room with the feller, and this 
was just Apache’s bluff to get a move on Canlan. 
Canlan was no sooner gone than Apache Kid asks 
me to fetch a glass o’ spirits. It was only thinkin’ 
it over after that I saw through the thing ; anyhow, 
I come down for the glass, and when I got up, derned 
if they did n’t hev the man propped up in bed, and 
him mumblin’ away and them bendin’ over him listen- 
ing eager to him. They gave him the liquor, and he 
began talking a trifle stronger, and took two-three 
deep gusts o’ breath. Then he began mumblin’ 
again.” 

Mr. Laughlin looked furtively round and then, lean- 
ing forward again, thrust his neck forward and with 


THE STORT UP TO DATE 


15 


infinite disgust in his voice said: “And damn me if 
that wife o’ mine did n’t come to the stair-end right 
then and start yellin’ on me to come down.” 

Laughlin shook his head sadly. “ Seems her derned 
old parrot was shoutin’ for food and as it had all give 
out she wants me to go down to the store for some 
more. But I must say that she had just come in her- 
self and did n’t know nothin’ about the business that 
was goin’ on upstairs. When Canlan and the doctor 
did arrive and go up the fellow was dead — sure thing 
— dead as — dead as — ” he searched for the simile 
without which he could not speak for long. “ Dead 
as God ! ” he said in a horrible whisper, raising his 
grey eyebrows. 

I shuddered somehow at the words, and yet in 
such a red-hot, ungodly place as Baker City I could 
almost understand the phrase. There was another 
pause after that and then Laughlin cleared his throat 
again and held up a lean finger in my face. 

“ There *s where the place comes in,” said he, 
“ where you says ‘ the plot thickens,’ for I ’m a son 
of a gun if word did n’t come down next day that the 
fellers up at the Boorman Mine had picked up just 
such another dead-beat. This here corpse of which 
I bin tellin’ you was indemnified after as having been 
in company with the other. But the man the Poor- 
man boys picked up was jest able to tell them that 
he had seen the lights o’ their bunk-house and was 
trying to make for it. Told them that he and two 


i6 T HE LOST CABIN MINE 

partners had struck it rich in the mountains, pow’ful 
rich, he said, and hed all been so fevered like that 
they let grub run out. Then they went out looking 
for something to shoot up and could n’t find a thing. 
One of ’em went off then to fetch supplies, lost his 
way in them mountains, wanders about nigh onto 
a week — and hits their own camp ag’in at the end 
o’ that time. Isn’t it terrible? You’d think that 
after striking it luck jest turned about and hed a 
laugh at ’em for a change. They comes rushin’ on 
him, the other two, expecting grub — Grub nothing ! 
He was too derned tired to budge then, and so the 
other two sets out then — This fellow what the Poor- 
man boys picked up was doin’ his level best to tell 
’em where the place was, for the sake of his partner 
left there, and in the middle of his talk he took a fit 
and never came out of it. All they know is that 
there was a cabin built at the place. That’s the 
story for you.” 

** But what about the man who was brought down 
here; did he not leave any indication?” 

** Now you ’re askin’,” said Laughlin. ** But I see 
you bin payin’ attention to this yere story. Now 
you’re askin’. Nobody knows whether he did or 
not. But this I can tell you — that Apache Kid and 
Larry Donoghue has done nothing since then but 
jest wander about with the tail of an eye on Canlan, 
and Canlan returns the compliment. And here ’s 
miners cornin’ in from the Poorman and stoppin’ in 


THE STORY UP TO DATE 


17 


town a night and trying to fill Apache Kid and his 
mate full, and trying the same on Canlan to get them 
to talk, and them just sittin’ smilin’ through it all, and 
nobody knows what they think.” 

“ But,” said I, ‘‘ if they do know, could the three of 
them not come to some agreement and go out and 
find the place ? If the third man is dead there, I sup- 
pose the mine would be theirs and they could share 
on it. Besides, while they stay here doubtless other 
men will be out looking for the cabin.” 

The landlord listened attentively to me. 

Well,” said he, as for your first remark, Canlan 
is too all-fired hard a man to make any such daffy 
with them, and there ’s just that touch of the devil in 
Apache Kid and that amount of hang-dog in Don- 
oghue to prevent them making up to Canlan, I 
reckon. Not but what they pump each other. Some- 
times they get out there on the verandah nights, and, 
you bein’ in the know now, you ’ll understand what ’s 
running underneath everything they say. As for the 
other men goin’ out and looking for a cabin ! Shucks ! 
Might as well go and look for that needle you hear 
people talk about in the haystack. Not but what a 
great lot has gone out. Most every man in the Poor- 
man Mine went off with a pack-hoss to hunt it, and 
plenty others too. And between you and me,” said 
the landlord, “ I reckon they ’re all on the wrong 
scent. They ’re all away along Baker Range, and I 
reckon they must be on the wrong scent there or else 


i8 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


them three others would n’t be sittin’ here in Baker 
City smiling ; that is, if they dew know where the 
location is.” 

Just then the Chinese cook arrived quietly on the 
scene to inform Mr. Laughlin of the progress of din- 
ner. Then a laugh sounded in the passage and 
Apache Kid entered the bar-room accompanied by a 
heavy-set, loose-jawed man of thirty years or thereby, 
a man with a slovenly appearance in his dress and a 
cruel expression on his face. 

“ That ’s them both,” said Laughlin, prodding me 
with his elbow as they marched through the bar and 
out to the rear verandah where we heard them drag- 
ging chairs about, and the harsh voice of the parrot, 
evidently awakened from his reveries in the sunshine : 

'' Well, well ! If this ain’t ” and a dry cackle of 

laughter. 

“They’re lookin’ right lively and pleased with 
themselves,” said the proprietor. “ I reckon if Can- 
lan comes along to-night it will be worth your while, 
now that you know the ins and outs of the business, 
to keep an eye on the three and watch the co-mical 
game they keep on playin’ with each other. But it 
can’t go on forever, that there game. I do hope, if 
they make a bloody end to it, it don’t take place in 
my house. Times is changed from the old days. 
I ’ve seen when it was quite an advertisement to have 
a bit of shooting in your house some night. And if 
there wasn’t enough holes made in the roof and 


THE STORT UP TO DATE 19 

chairs broke, you could make some more damage 
yourself; and the crowd would come in, and you’d 
point out where so-and-so was standing, and where 
so-and-so was settin’, and tell ’em how it happened, 
and them listening and setting up the drinks all the 
time. It certainly was good for business, a little 
shooting now and then, in the old days. But times 
is changed, and the sheriff we hev now is a very lively 
man. All the same, we ain’t done with Lost Cabin 
Mine yet — and that ain’t no lie.” 


CHAPTER III 

Mr, Laughlins Prophecy is Fulfilled 

SENSE of exhilaration filled me, as 
I strolled down town that evening, 
which I can only ascribe to the rare 
atmosphere of that part of the world. 
It was certainly not due to any im- 
provement in my financial condition, nor to any hope 
of “ making my pile ” speedily, and to ‘‘ make a pile ” 
is the predominating thought in men’s minds there, 
with an intensity that is known in few other lands. 
I was pondering the story of the Lost Cabin Mine as 
I went, and in my own mind had come to the decision 
that Apache Kid and his comrade knew the where- 
abouts of that bonanza. Canlan, I argued, if he 
knew its locality at all, must have come by his news 
before he fell in with his rivals on the waggon road, 
for after that, according to the hotel-keeper’s narra- 
tive, he had had no speech with the dying man. 

I was in the midst of these reflections when I turned 
into Baker Street, the main street of Baker City. There 
was a wonderful bustle there ; men were coming and 
going on either sidewalk thick as bees in hiving time; 
the golden air of evening was laden with the perfume 
of cigars ; indeed, the blue of the smoke never seemed 



THE PROPHECY FULFILLED 21 

to fly clear of Baker Street on the evenings ; and the 
sound of the many phonographs that thrust their 
trumpets out from all the stores on that thoroughfare, 
added to the din of voices and laughter, rose above 
the sounds of talk, to be precise, with a barbaric 
medley of hoarse songs and throaty recitations. So 
much for the sidewalks. In the middle of the street, 
to cross which one had to wade knee-deep in sand, 
pack-horses were constantly coming and going and 
groaning teams arriving from the mountains. To add 
to the barbarous nature of the scene, now and again 
an Indian would go by, not with feathered head-dress 
as in former days, but with a gaudy kerchief bound 
about his head, tinsel glittering here and there about 
his half-savage, half-civilised garb, and a pennon of 
dust following the quick patter of his pony’s hoofs. 
I walked the length of Baker Street and then turned, 
walking back again with a numb pain suddenly in my 
heart, for as I turned right about I saw the great, quiet 
hills far off, and beyond them the ineffable blue of the 
sky. And there is something in me that makes me 
always fall silent when amidst the din of men I see the 
enduring, uncomplaining, undesiring hills. So I went 
back to the hotel again, and without passing through 
the bar but going around the house, found the rear 
verandah untenanted, with its half dozen vacant chairs, 
and there I sat down to watch the twilight change the 
hills. But I had not been seated long when a small 
set man, smelling very strongly of whisky, came out 


22 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, and, lean- 
ing against one of the verandah props, looked up at 
the hills, spitting at regular intervals far out into the 
sand and slowly ruminating a chew of tobacco. 

** Canlan, for a certainty,” I said to myself, when he, 
looking toward the door from which he had emerged, 
attracted by a sudden louder outbreak of voices and 
rattling of chairs within, revealed to me a face very 
sorely pock-marked, as was easily seen with the lamp- 
light streaming out on him from the bar. On seeing 
me he made some remark on the evening, came over 
and sat down beside me, and asked me why I sat at 
the back of the hotel instead of at the front. 

“ Because one can see the hills from here,” said 1. 

He grunted and remarked that a man would do 
better to sit at the front and see what was going on 
in the town. Then he rose and, walking to and fro, 
flung remarks to me, in passing, regarding the doings 
in the city and the mines and so forth, the local 
gossip of the place. He had just reverted to his first 
theme of the absurdity of sitting at the rear of the 
house when out came Apache Kid and Donoghue 
and threw themselves into the chairs near me, 
Donoghue taking the one beside me which Canlan 
had just vacated. If Canlan thought a man a fool for 
choosing the rear instead of the front, he was evi- 
dently, nevertheless, content to be a fool himself, for 
after one or two peregrinations and expectorations 
he drew a chair to the front of the verandah and 


THE PROPHECY FULFILLED 23 

seated himself, half turned towards us, and began 
amusing himself with tilting the chair to and fro like 
a rocker. The valley was all in shadow now, and as 
we sat there in the silence the moon swam up in 
the middle of one of the clefts of the mountains, 
silhouetting for a brief space, ere it left them for the 
open sky, the ragged edge of the tree-tops in the 
highest forest. 

Apache Kid muttered something, Donoghue 
growled, “ What say ? ” And it surprised me some- 
what to hear the reply : “ O ! I was only saying ‘ with 
how sad steps, O moon, thou climb’st the skies.* It 's 
lonesome-like, up there, Larry.” 

Aye ! Lonesome ! ” replied Larry with a sigh. 

A fifth man joined us then, and, hearing this, re- 
marked : ** A man thinks powerful up there.” 

That’s no lie,” Donoghue growled, and so the 
conversation, if conversation you can call it, went on, 
interspersed with long spaces of silence, broken only 
by the gurgling of the newcomer’s pipe and Canlan’s 
spit, spit ” which came quicker now. Men are 
prone in such times as these to sit and exchange 
truisms instead of carrying on any manner of conver- 
sation. Yet to me, not long in the country, there 
was a touch of mystery in even the truisms. 

I never seen a man who had spent much time in 
the mountains that was just what you could call all 
there in the upper story,” said the man with the 
juicy pipe. 


24 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


“ Nor I,” said Donoghue. 

They ’re all half crazy, them old prospectors,” 
continued the first, ” and tell you the queerest yarns 
about things they’ve seen in the mountains and 
expect you to believe them. You can see from the 
way they talk that they believe ’em themselves. But 
I don’t see why a man should lose his reason in the 
hills. If a man lets his brain go when he ’s up there, 
then he don’t have any real enjoyment out of the 
fortune he makes — if he happens to strike it.” 

The moon was drifted far upward now and all the 
frontage of the hill was tipped with light green, 
among the darker green, where the trees that soared 
above their neighbours caught the light. ** And there 
must be lots of fortunes lying there thick if one knew 
where to find them,” continued the talker of truisms. 

“ Where?” said Apache in a soft voice. 

“ In the mountains, in the mountains,” was the reply. 

“Why do you ask where?” said Donoghue 
sharply. “ Do you think if this gentleman knew 
where to find ’em he would be sitting here this 
blessed night?” 

I felt my heart take a quicker beat at that. Know- 
ing what I knew of three of these men here I began 
to see what Mr. Laughlin meant by the “ game ” they 
were playing. 

“ O, he might,” said Canlan, now speaking for the 
first time since Apache’s arrival. 

“That would be a crazy thing to do,” said Don- 


THE PROPHECY FULFILLED 25 


oghue. ** That would — a crazy thing — to set here 
instead of going and locating it.” 

O, I don’t know about crazy F said Mike. ** You 
see, he might be waiting to see if anybody else 
knew where it was.” 

The soft-footed Chinese attendant appeared car- 
rying a lamp which he hung up above our heads, 
and in the light of it I saw the face of the man 
whose name I did not know, and he seemed mys- 
tified by the turn the conversation had taken. I 
was looking at him now, thinking to myself that I 
too would have been mystified had I not been posted 
in the matter that afternoon, and suddenly I heard 
Donoghue say : By God ! he knows right enough, 
Apache,” and a gleam of light flashed in my eyes. 
It was the barrel of a revolver, but not aimed at 
me. It was in Donoghue’s hand, and pointed fairly 
at Canlan’s head. With a sudden intake of my 
breath in horror I flung out my hand and knocked 
the barrel up. There was a little shaft of flame, a 
sharp crack and puff of bitter smoke, and next 
moment a clatter of feet within and a knot of men 
thronging and craning at the door, while the win- 
dow behind was darkened with others shouldering 
there and pressing their faces against the glass. 

” O you ” began Apache, and What ’s this ? ” 

cried Laughlin, coming out, no coward, as one might 
imagine, but calm enough and yet angry as I 
could see. 


26 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


‘‘What in thunder are you all rubber-necking at 
the door there for?'* cried Apache Kid, spring- 
ing up. 

“ Was it you fired that gun ? ” challenged the 
landlord. 

“ No, not I,” cried Apache so that all could hear. 
“ Not but what I was the cause of it, by betting my 
partner here he could n’t snap a bat on the wing 
in the dusk. I never thought he’d try it, but he’s 
as crazy ” 

“ I crazy ! ” cried out Donoghue ; and to look at 
him you would have thought him really infuriated 
by the suggestion ; but they knew how to play into 
each other’s hands. 

All this time I sat motionless. The stranger rose 
and passed by, remarking : “ This ain’t my trouble, 
I guess,” and away indoors he went among the 
throng, and I heard him cry out in reply to the 
questions : “ I don’t know anything about it — saw 
nothing — I was asleep — I don’t even know who 
fired.” 

“ Haw ! Did n’t even wake in time to see whose 
pistol was smoking, eh ? ” 

“ No,” cried he, “ not even in time for that.” 

“ Quite right, you,” cried another. But the 
trouble was not yet quite over on the verandah, for 
Laughlin, with his little eyes looking very fierce 
and determined, remarked: “Well, gentlemen, I 
can’t be having any shooting of any kind in my 


THE PROPHECr FULFILLED 27 


hotel. Besides, you know there ’s a law ag’in’ car- 
rying weapons here.” 

‘‘No there ain’t!” cried Donoghue. “It’s con- 
cealed weapons the law is against, and I carry my 
gun plain for every man to see.” 

Canlan had sat all this while on his seat as calm 
as you please, but suddenly the crowd at the door 
opened out and somebody said : “ Say, here ’s the 
sheriff, boys,” and at these words two men sprang 
from the verandah; the one was Donoghue, and 
Canlan the other. I saw them a moment running 
helter-skelter in the sand, but when the sheriff 
made his appearance they were gone. 

The sheriff had to get as much of the story as he 
could from the proprietor, who was very civil and 
polite, but lied ferociously, saying he did not know 
who the men were who had been on the verandah. 

“ I know you, anyhow,” said the sheriff, turning on 
Apache Kid. “Allow me, sir,” and walking up to 
Apache Kid he drew his hand over his pockets and 
felt him upon the hips. 

Then I knew why Canlan, though entirely innocent 
in this matter, had fled at the cry of “ sheriff.” He, I 
guessed, would not have come off so well as Apache 
Kid in a search for weapons. 

At this stage of the proceedings the Chinese at- 
tendant passed me, quiet as is the wont of his race, 
and brushed up against Apache Kid just as the 
sheriff turned to ask Mr. Laughlin if he could not 


28 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

describe the man who had fired the shot. ‘‘ I ain’t 
been out on the verandah not for a good hour,” be- 
gan the landlord, when Apache Kid broke in, Well, 
Sheriff, I can tell you the name of one of the men 
who was here.” 

‘‘ O ! ” said the sheriff, “ and what was his name? ” 
Mike Canlan,” said the Apache Kid, calmly. 

*‘Yes,” said the sheriff, looking on him with nar- 
rowing eyes, ** and the name of the other was Larry 
Donoghue.” 

Could n’t very well be Larry,” said Apache Kid. 
“ Larry was drunk to-night before sunset, and I be- 
lieve you ’ll find him snoring in room number thirty 
at this very moment.” 

The sheriff gazed on him a little space and I no- 
ticed, on stealing a glance at Mr. Laughlin, that a 
quick look of surprise passed over his colourless 
face. 

There was a ring as of respect in the sheriff’s voice 
when, after a long, eye-to-eye scrutiny of Apache Kid, 
he said slowly: ‘‘You’re a deep man, Apache, but 
you won’t get me to play into your hands.” 

So saying he stepped over to me and for the first 
time addressed me. “ As for you, my lad, I have n’t 
asked you any questions, because it ’s better that the 
like of you don’t get mixed up at all in these kind of 
affairs, not even on the right side.” He laid his 
hand on my shoulder in a fatherly fashion, “ I ’ve had 
my eye on you, as I have my eye on everybody, and 


THE PROPHECY FULFILLED 29 


I know you 're an honest enough lad and doing your 
best to get a start here. I ain’t even blaming you 
for being in the middle of this, but you take the advice 
of a man that has been sheriff in a dozen different 
parts of the West, and when you see signs of trouble 
just you go away and leave it. Trouble with a gun 
seldom springs up between a good man and a bad, 
but most always between two bad men.” 

** Is that my character you are soliloquising on ? ” 
said Apache Kid. The sheriff turned on him and 
his face hardened again. “For Heaven’s sake, 
Apache,” he said, “ if you and Canlan both know 
where the Lost Cabin is, why can’t you have the grit 
to start off? If he follows you, well, you can fix him. 
It’ll save me a job later on.” 

“ Well, for the sake of the argument,” said Apache, 
“ but remember I ’m not saying I know, suppose 
he followed up and shot me out of a bush some 
night?” 

“ I’d be mighty sorry,” said the sheriff, “ for I think 
between the pair of you he ’s a worse man for the 
health of the country.” 

A boyish look came over Apache Kid’s face that 
made me think him younger than I had at first con- 
sidered him. He looked pleased at the sheriff’s words 
and bowed in a way that betokened a knowledge of 
usages other than those of Baker City. 

“ Thank you, Sheriff,” he said. “ I ’ll see what can 
be done.” 


30 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


Off went the sheriff smartly then, without another 
word, and Apache Kid turned to me. 

*‘rve got to thank you for preventing ” he 

began, and then the Chinaman appeared beside us. 
*‘Well, Chink?” 

** Maybe that littee jobee woth half a dollah, eh?” 

** Did Donoghue give you nothing for bringing the 
message ? ” 

** Oh, no,” and a bland smile. ** Mishadonah think 
you give me half a dollah.” 

“Well, it was certainly worth half a dollar; but 
remember, if I find out that Donoghue gave you 
anything, ” 

“ Oh yes,” said the Chinaman, with a slight look of 
perturbation, “Mishadonah he gave me half-dollah.” 

Apache Kid laughed. “ Well,” he said, “ you 
don’t hold up your bluff very long. However, here 
you are, here ’s half a dollar to you all the same — for 
your truthfulness.” 

I experienced then a feeling of great disgust. 
Here was this Chinaman lying and wheedling for 
half a dollar ; here just a few minutes gone I had seen 
murder attempted — and for what? All occasioned 
again by that lust for gold. And here beside me was 
a man with a certain likableness about him ( so that, 
as I had observed, even the sheriff, who suspected 
him, had a warm side to him) lying and humbugging 
and deceiving. I thought to myself that doubtless 
his only objection to Larry Donoghue’s attempt at 


THE PROPHECY FULFILLED 31 

murder was because of the prominence of it in this 
place and the difficulties that would have ensued in 
proving Larry guiltless had the attempt been con- 
summated. This man,” said I to myself, for all that 
likableness in his manner, the kindly sparkle of his 
eyes, and the smile on his lips, is no better than the 
hang-dog fellow he sought to shield — worse, indeed, 
for he has the bearing of one who has had a training 
of another order.” And then I saw Mrs. Laughlin’s 
red head and freckled face and lean, lissome form in 
the doorway. She was beckoning me to her, and 
when I made haste to see what she wanted with me 
she looked on me with much tenderness and said : 
“ You want to remember what the sheriff said to you, 
my lad. Take my advice and leave that fellow out 
there alone for to-night. He 's a reckless lad and from 
the way he is talking to you he seems to have taken 
a fancy to you. But you leave him alone. He 's a 
deep lad, is Apache Kid, and for all his taking way 
he leads a life I 'm sure neither his mother would like 
to see him in, nor your mother (if you have one) 
would like to see you taking up. There *s some says 
he 's little better than the fellow he gets his name from. 
I ’m sorry for you lads when I see you getting off the 
trail.” 

So what with the words of the sheriff and this well- 
meant talk and my own disgust at all these doings, I 
made up my mind to keep clear of these three men 
and not permit my curiosity regarding the Lost Cabin 


32 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


Mine to lead me into their company again. But 
when I went up to my room, before going to bed, I 
counted my remaining money and found that I had 
but seven dollars to my name. I thought to myself 
then that the Lost Cabin Mine would be a mighty 
convenient thing to find. And in my dreams that 
night I wandered up hill and down dale seeking for 
the Lost Cabin and engaging in hand-to-hand con- 
flicts with all three of these men, Canlan, Donoghue, 
and the Apache Kid. It was on awakening from one 
of these conflicts that I lay thinking over all that I 
had heard of that mysterious Cabin and all that I had 
seen of the three principally connected with it. Re- 
volving these thoughts in my mind, it occurred to me 
that it was an unaccountable thing, if all three knew 
the situation of the mine, that the two who were part- 
ners ” should not simply start out for it and risk being 
followed up and shadowed by Canlan. They were 
always two to one and could take watch and watch by 
night lest Canlan should follow and attempt to slay 
them from the bushes ; for that, it would appear, was 
the chief danger in the matter. 

Canlan’s dread of starting alone I could under- 
stand. Then suddenly I sat upright in bed with the 
sudden belief that the truth of the matter was that 
Canlan, and Canlan only, knew of the mine’s situation. 
‘‘ But that again can’t be,” said I, for undoubtedly 
Donoghue meant murder to-night and that would 
be to kill the goose with the golden eggs.” I was no 


THE PROPHECr FULFILLED 33 


nearer a solution' of the mystery but I could not dis- 
miss the matter from my mind. “ I believe,” said I 
to myself, “ that instead of having nothing to do with 
this Lost Cabin Mine I will yet find out the truth of 
it from these men. Who knows but what I, even I, 
may be the one for whom the mine with all its 
treasure waits?” 


CHAPTER IV 

I Take My Life in My Hands 

FTER breakfast on the day following 
the incident of the verandah I was 
journeying down town to post two 
letters, the Lost Cabin Mine still 
uppermost in my mind, when I came, 
at the turning into Baker Street, face to face with the 
man Donoghue. It was clear that he saw me, — he 
could not help seeing me, so directly were we meeting, 
— and I wondered if now he would have a word to say 
to me regarding the part I played on the preceding 
evening. Sure enough, he stopped; but there was 
only friendliness on his face and the heaviness of 
it and the sulkiness were hardly visible when he 
smiled. 

He held out his hand to me with evident sincerity, 
and said that he had to thank me for preventing 
what he called an accident last night.’* 

I smiled at the word, for he spoke it so easily, as 
though the whole thing were a mere bagatelle to 
him. ** It was right stupid of me,” he said. But 
Laughlin keeps such bad liquor! Canlan, too, had 
had too much of it, or he would never have tried 
to irritate me with his remark,” I was trying to 




/ TAKE MY LIFE IN MY HANDS 35 


recollect the exact words of that remark which 
Donoghue classified as ** irritating ” when he inter- 
rupted my thoughts with: *^The Apache Kid and 
me has quit the Laughlin House.” 

“Yes, I did n’t see you at breakfast there,” said I. 

“ Was Canlan there ? ” he asked eagerly. 

“ Not while I was breakfasting, at any rate,” I 
replied. 

He nursed his chin in his hand at that and stood 
pondering something. Then : “ Quite so, quite so,” 
he commented as though to himself. Then to me: 
“By the way, would you be so kind as to come 
down this evening to Blaine’s? The Apache Kid 
asked me to try and see you and ask you if you 
would be good enough to come down.” 

“Blaine’s?” I asked. “Where is Blaine’s?” 

“ Blaine, Blaine, Lincoln Avenue ; near the corner 
of Twenty-second Street.” 

. It amazed me to hear of a Twenty-second Street in 
this city that boasted only one long street (Baker 
Street) and six streets running off it. But of course, 
a street is a street in a new city even though it can 
boast only of a house at either corner and has nothing 
between these corner houses but tree-stumps, or sand, 
or sage-bushes, and little boards thrust into the ground 
announcing : “ This is a sure-thing lot. Its day will 
come very soon. See about it when it can be bought 

cheap from , Real Estate Agent, office open day 

and night.” 


36 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


But Donoghue, seeing that I did not know the 
streets of the city by name, directed me : 

“You go right along Baker Street, — you know it, 
of course, the main street of this progressive burgh? 

— straight ahead west ; turn down third on the right ; 

look up at the store front there and you read ‘ H. B. 
Blaine. Makes you think o* Home and Mother.* 
It 's a coffee-joint, you see. There 's a coffee urn in 
the window and two plates, one with crackers on it 
and t’ other with doughnuts. You walk right in and 
ask for the Apache Kid — straight goods — no josh.** 
He stopped to give emphasis to the rest and after 
that pause he said in a meaning tone : “ And — you 

— will — hear — o* something to your advantage.** 

He nodded sedately and, without giving me time to 

say anything in reply, moved off. You may be sure 
I pondered this invitation as I went along roaring 
Baker Street to the post-office. And I was indeed in 
two minds about it, uncertain whether to call in at 
Blaine*s or not. Both the sheriff and Mrs. Laughlin 
had cautioned me against these men, and I had, be- 
sides, seen enough of them to know myself that they 
were not just all that could be desired. The word the 
sheriff had used regarding Apache Kid*s nature, 
“deep,** came into my mind, along with reflections 
on all his prevarications of the previous day. It 
occurred to me that it would be quite in keeping with 
him to pretend gratefulness to me, at the moment, for 
my interference, and to post up Donoghue to do the 


I TAKE MT LIFE IN MT HANDS 37 

same, with the intention in his mind all the while of 
“ getting me in a quiet corner, as the phrase is. I 
think I may be excused this judgment considering all 
the duplicity I had already seen him practise. A 
story that I had heard somewhere of a trap-door in a 
floor which opened and precipitated whoever stood 
upon it down into a hole among rats came into my 
head. Perhaps H. B. Blaine had such a trap-door in 
his floor. One could believe anything of half the 
men one saw here, with their blood-shot eyes, strag- 
gling hair, and cruel mouths. Still, I had felt real 
friendliness, no counterfeit, in both Apache Kid last 
night and Donoghue to-day. 

A wave of disgust at my cowardice and suspicion 
came over me to aid me toward the decision that 
my curiosity was already crying for and so, when the 
day wore near an end, I set forth — for Blaine’s, the 
** coffee-joint.” 

. When I got the length of Baker Street I was to see 
another sight such as only the West could show. The 
phonographs, as usual, it being now evening, were all 
grumbling forth their rival songs at the stalls and 
open windows. The wonted din was in the air when 
suddenly an eddy began in the crowd on the opposite 
sidewalk. It was in front of one of the toughest ” 
saloons in town, and out of that eddy darted a man, 
hatless, and broke away pell-mell along the street. 
Next moment the saloon door swung again, and after 
him there went running another fellow, with a toma- 


38 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

hawk in his hand, his hair flying behind him as he ran, 
his legs straddled wide to prevent him tripping up on 
his great spurs. Where the third party in this scene 
sprang from I cannot tell. I only know that he 
suddenly appeared on the street, habited in a blue 
serge suit, with a Stars-and-Stripes kerchief round his 
slouch hat in place of a band, and a silver star on his 
breast. It was my friend the portly, fatherly, stern 
sheriff. 

“ Stop, you ! ” he cried. 

But he with the tomahawk paid no heed, and out 
shot the sheriff’s leg and tripped the man up. The 
tomahawk flew from his hand and buried itself almost 
to the end of the handle in the dust of the road. 

“ Stop, you ! ” cried the sheriff again to the other 
fellow, who was still posting on. But the fugitive 
gave only a quick glance over his shoulder and ac- 
celerated his speed. It looked as though he would 
escape, when down flew the sheriff’s hand to his belt, 
then up above his head. He thrust out his chin vin- 
dictively, down came his revolver hand in a half- 
circle and — it was just as though he pointed at the 
flying man with his weapon — “ flash ! ” The man 
took one step more, but not a second. His leg was 
shot, and he fell. A waggon had stopped on the road- 
way, the teamster looking on, and him the sheriff 
immediately pressed into service. The man of the 
tomahawk rose, and, at a word from the man of law- 
and-order, climbed into the waggon ; he of the shot 


I TAKE Mr LIFE IN MT HANDS 39 

leg was assisted to follow ; the sheriff mounted beside 
them, and with a brief word to the teamster away 
went the waggon in a cloud of dust, and whirled round 
the corner to the court-house. And then the crowd 
in the street moved on as usual, the talk buzzed, the 
cigar smoke crept overhead. 

“ Would n’t that jar you? ” said a voice in my ear, 
and turning I found Donoghue by my side. “Just 
toddling down to Blaine’s?” 

“ Yes,” I said, and fell in step with him. 

Certainly this little incident I had witnessed on the 
way reassured me to the extent of making me think 
that if I was to be shot in the “ coffee-joint,” there 
was a lively sheriff in the town, and unless my demise 
was kept unconscionably quiet he would be by the 
way of making inquiries. 

With no trepidation at all, then, on reading the 
sign “ H. B. Blaine. Makes you think of Home and 
Mother,” I followed Donoghue into the sweet-scented 
“joint” with the gleaming coffee urn in the window. 

He nodded to the gentleman who stood behind 
the doughnut-heaped counter — H. B. Blaine, I pre- 
sumed — who jerked his head towards the rear of the 
establishment. 

“ Step right in, Mr. Donoghue,” he said. “ Apache 
Kid is settin’ there.” 


CHAPTER V 

I Agree to “ Keep the Peace ” in a New Sense 

r was at once evident that I was not to 
be murdered in H. B. Blaine’s place, 
and also evident that I had been invited 
to meet Apache Kid to hear some mat- 
ter that was not for all to hear; for 
immediately on our entering the little rear room he 
flung aside a paper he had been reading and leaped 
to his feet to meet us. He put a hand on Donoghue’s 
shoulder and the other he extended to me. 

** We ’ll not talk here,” he said. “ Walls have 
ears ; ” and so we all turned about and marched out 
again. 

Going out for a strowl? ” asked Blaine. 

Yes,” said Apache. ** Fine night for a strowl.” 
And we found ourselves on the street down which we 
turned and walked in silence. 

Suddenly Apache Kid slowed down and swore to 
himself. 

** I should n’t have said that ! ” he remarked 
angrily. 

“ Said what?” Donoghue interrogated. 

** O ! mocked Blaine like that — said we were going 
for a strowl.” 



I AGREE TO “KEEP THE PEACE 


41 


What do you mean ? ” asked Donoghue, whose 
ear did not seem very acute. 

Apache looked at him with a relieved expression. 

“ Well, that ’s hopeful,” he said. Perhaps Blaine 
would n’t catch it either. Still, still,* I should n’t have 
mocked him. You noticed, I bet? ” he said to me. 

“Strowl?” I inquired. 

He sighed. 

“ There ’s no sense in trying to make fun of any- 
thing in a man’s clothes or talk or manner^ Besides, 
it ’s excessively vulgar, excessively vulgar.” ^ 

“ Here ’s an interesting ‘ bad man,’ ” I mused ; but 
there was no more said till we won Clear of the town, 
quite beyond the last sidewalks that stretched and 
criss-crossed among the rocks and sand, marking out 
the prospective streets. There, on a little rising 
place of sand and rocks, we sat down. 

It was a desolate spot. A gentle wind was blowing 
among the dunes and the sand was all moving, trick- 
ling down here and piling up there. Being near sun- 
set the cicadi had disappeared and the evening light 
falling wan on the occasional tufts of sage-brush gave 
them a peculiar air of desolation. Donoghue pulled 
out a clasp-knife and sat progging in the sand with it, 
and then Apache Kid jerked up his head and smiled 
on me, a smile entirely friendly. And suddenly as he 
looked at me his face became grave. 

“ Have you had supper yet? ” he asked. 

“ No,” I said. It’s early yet.” 


42 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


He looked at me keenly and then : “ You ’ll excuse 
me remarking on your appearance, but you look ex- 
traordinarily tired.” 

‘‘ Oh,” said I, lightly, “ I have not been feeling just 
up to the scratch and — well, I thought I ’d try the 
fasting cure.” 

He hummed to himself and dived a hand into his 
trousers pocket and held out a five-dollar bill under 
my nose. 

“ There,” he said, ** go and eat and don’t lie any 
more. I ’ve been there myself — when I was new to 
the country and could n’t get into its ways.” 

There was something of such intense warm- 
heartedness behind the peremptory tones (while 
Donoghue turned his face aside, running the sand 
between his fingers and looking foolishly at it) that 
to tell you the truth, I found the tears in my eyes be- 
fore I was aware. But this sign of weakness Apache 
Kid made pretence not to observe. 

“ We ’ll wait here for you till you get fed,” said he, 
examining the back of his hand. 

** No, no,” I answered hastily, I had rather hear 
what you have to say just now.” Thank him for his 
kindness I could not, for I felt that thanks would 
but embarrass him. ** To tell you the truth, the 
mere knowledge that I need not go to bed hungry is 
sufficient.” 

‘^Well,” said he, looking up when my voice rang 
firm. ** The fact is, I am going to offer you a job ; 


I AGREE TO ^‘KEEP THE PEACE^* 43 

but it is a job you might not care to take unless you 
were hard pressed ; so you will please consider that 
a loan, not a first instalment, and the fact of settling 
it must not influence." 

This was very fairly spoken and I felt that I should 
say something handsome, but he gave me no oppor- 
tunity, continuing at once : “ Donoghue here and I 
are wanting a partner on an expedition that we are 
going on. We ’re very old friends, we two, but for 
quite a little while back we had both been meditating 
going on this expedition separately. Fact is, we are 
such very old friends and know each other’s weak- 
nesses so well that, though we both had the idea of 
the expedition in our heads, we did n’t care about 
going together.’’ 

All this he spoke as much to Donoghue as to me, 
with a bantering air ; and one thing at least I learned 
from this — the reason why these two had not. done 
as Laughlin thought the natural thing for them to do, 
namely, to go out together, heedless of Canlan. For 
I had no doubt whatever that the expedition was to 
the Lost Cabin Mine. That was as clear as the sun. 
Further observation of their natures, if further obser- 
vation I was to have, might explain their long reluc- 
tance to go partners *’ on the venture, a reluctance 
now evidently overcome. 

** Get to your job,’’ growled Donoghue, and quit 
palaver." 

It was evident that Apache Kid was determined 


44 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


not to permit himself to be irritated, for he only 
smiled on Donoghue’s snarl and turned to me : “ My 
friend Donoghue and 1 ,” said he, it is necessary to 
explain, are such very old friends that we can cor- 
dially hate each other.” 

** At times,” interjected Donoghue. 

Yes ; upon occasion,” said Apache Kid. “ To 
you, new to this country, such a state of things 
between friends may be scarcely comprehensible, 
but ” and Apache Kid stopped. 

“ It ’s them mountains that does it,” said Donoghue, 
with a heavy frown. 

“ Them mountains, as Donoghue says ; that ’s it. 
It’s queer how the mountains, when you get among 

them, seem to creep in all round you and lock you up. 
It does n’t take long among them with a man to know 
whether you and he belong to the same order and 
breed. There are men who can never sleep under 
the same blanket ; yes, never sleep on the same 
side of the fire ; never, after two days in the hills, 
ride side by side, but must get space between them.” 

His eyes were looking past me on things invisible 
to me, looking in imagination, I suppose, on his own 
past from which he spoke. 

And if you don’t like your partner, you know it 

then, ” Donoghue said. “You go riding along and if 
he speaks to you, you want him to shut it. And if he 
don’t speak, you ask him what in thunder he’s 
broodin’ about. And you look for him to fire up at 


/ AGREE TO ^‘KEEP THE PEACE^^ 45 

you then, and if he don’t, you feel worse than ever and 
go along with just a little hell burning against him in 
here,” and he tapped his chest. “ You could turn on 
him and eat him ; yes siree, kill him with your teeth 
in his neck.” 

** This is called the return to Nature,” said Apache 
Kid, calmly. 

“ Return to hell ! ” cried Donoghue, and Apache 
Kid inclined his head in acquiescence. He seemed 
content to let Donoghue now do the talking. 

“ Apache and me has come to an agreement, as 
he says, to go out on the trail, and though we 've 
chummed together a heap — ” 

‘‘In the manner of wolves,” said Apache, with a 
half sneer. 

“ Yes,” said Donoghue, “ a good bit like that, too. 
Well, but on this trail we can’t go alone. It ’s too 
all-fired far and too all-fired lonely.” 

His gaze wandered to the mountains behind the 
town and Apache took up the discourse. 

“ You see the idea ? We want a companion to 
help us to keep the peace. Foolish — eh? Well, I 
don’t blame you if you don’t quite understand. 
You ’re new here. You ’ve never been in the moun- 
tains, day in day out, with a man whose soul an alto- 
gether different god or devil made ; with a man that 
you fervently hope, if there ’s any waking up after the 
last kick here, you won’t find in your happy hunting- 
ground beyond. You won’t have to come in between 


46 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

and hold us apart, you know. The mere presence of 
a third party is enough.” 

He looked on me keenly a space and added : 

** Somehow I think that you will do more than keep 
off the bickering spirit I think you ’ll establish ami- 
cable relations.” 

It was curious to observe how the illiterate Don- 
oghue took his partner’s speech so much for granted. 

What ’s amicable? ” he said. 

** Friendly,” said Apache Kid. 

** Amicable, friendly,” said Donoghue, thoughtfully. 
“ Good word, amicable.” 

** The trip would be worth a couple of hundred 
dollars to you,” said Apache, with his eyes on mine. 
” And if we happened to be out over two months, at 
the rate of a hundred a month for the time beyond.” 

“Well, that’s straight enough talk, I guess,” said 
Donoghue. “ Is the deal on ? ” 

My financial condition itself was such as to pre- 
clude any doubt. Had I been told plainly that it 
was to the Lost Cabin Mine we were going and been 
offered a share in it I would, remembering Apache 
Kid and Donoghue of the verandah, as I may put it, 
in distinction from Apache Kid and Donoghue of to- 
night — well, I would have feared that some heated 
sudden turn of mind of one or the other or both of 
these men might prevent me coming into my own. 
Donoghue especially had a fearsome face to see. 
But there was no such suggestion. I was offered 


I AGREE TO ‘^KEEP THE PEACE^^ 47 

two hundred dollars and, now that the night fell and 
the silence deepened and the long range of hills 
gloomed on us, I thought I could understand that the 
presence of a third man might be well worth two 
hundred dollars to two men of very alien natures 
among the silence and the loneliness that would 
throw them together closely whether they would or 
not. 

“ The deal is on,” I said. 

We shook hands solemnly then and Donoghue 
looked toward Apache Kid as though all the pro- 
gramme was not yet completed. Apache Kid nod- 
ded and produced a roll of bills. The light was 
waning and he held them close to him as he withdrew 
one. 

“ That ’ll make us square again,” he said, handing 
me the roll. “ I Ve kept off a five ; so now we ’re 
not obliged to each other for anything.” 

And then, as though to seal the compact and bear 
in upon me a thought of the expedition we were going 
upon, the sun disappeared behind the western hills 
and from somewhere out there, in the shadows and 
deeper shadows of the strange piled landscape, came 
a long, faint sound, half bay, half moan. It was the 
dusk cry of the mountain coyotes \ and either the 
echo of it or another cry came down from the hills 
beyond the city, only the hum of which we heard 
there. And when that melancholy cry, or echo, had 
ended, a cold wind shuddered across the land , all that 


48 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

loneliness, that by day seemed to lure one ever with 
its sunlit peaks and its blue, meditative hollows, 
seemed now a place of terrors and strange occur- 
rences ; but the lure was still there, only a different 
lure, — a lure of terror and darkness instead of ro- 
mance and sunlight. 


CHAPTER VI 

Farewell to Baker City 

E all came to our feet then, Apache 
Kid carefully flicking the sand from 
his clothing. 

Now,” he said, “ that settles us. 
WeVe quits.” And we all walked 
slowly and silently back in company toward the city. 

When we came to Blaine’s coffee-joint ” Apache 
Kid stopped, and told me he would see me later in 
the evening at the Laughlin House to arrange about 
the starting out on our venture. Donoghue wanted 
him to go on with him, but Apache Kid said he 
must see Blaine again before leaving the city. 

“ I desire to leave a good impression of myself 
behind me,” he said with a laugh. “ I should like 
Blaine to feel sorry to hear of my demise when that 
occurs, and as things stand I don’t think he’d care, 
to use the language of the country, a continental 
cuss.” 

So saying, with a wave of his hand, he entered 
Blaine’s. 

At Baker Street corner Donoghue stopped. 

I ’ll be seeing you two days from now,” he said. 

“ Do we not start for two days then? ” I asked. 

4 




50 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

“ O, Apache Kid will see you to-night and make 
all the arrangements about pulling out. So-long, just 
now.” 

So I went on to my hotel and, thus rescued from 
poverty on the very day that I had the first taste of 
it, I felt very much contented and cheered, and it was 
with a light and hopeful heart that I wandered out, 
after my unusually late supper, along the waggon road 
as far as the foothill woods and back, breathing deep 
of the thin air of night and rejoicing in the starlight. 

When I returned to the hotel there was a consider- 
able company upon the rear verandah, as I could see 
from quite a distance — dim, shadowy forms sprawled 
in the lounge chairs with the yellow-lit and open 
door behind shining out on the blue night, and over 
them was the lamp that always hung there in the 
evenings, where the parrot’s cage hung by day. 

When I came on to the verandah I picked out 
Apache Kid at once. 

A man who evidently did not know him was saying : 

** What do you wear that kerchief for, sir, hanging 
away down your neck that way ? ” 

There were one or two laughs of other men, who 
thought they were about to see a man quietly baited. 
But Apache Kid was not the man to stand much 
baiting, even of a mild stamp. 

I think few of the men there, however, understood 
the nature that prompted him when he turned slowly 
in his chair and said : 


FAREWELL TO BAKER CITT 51 


** Well, sir, I wear it for several reasons.’' 

“ Oh ! What ’s them ? ” 

Well, the first reason is personal — I like to wear 
it.” 

There was a grin still on the face of the questioner. 
He found nothing particularly crushing in this reply, 
but Apache went on softly: “ Then again, I wear it 
so as to aid me in the study of the character of the 
men I meet.” 

‘‘ O ! How do you work that miracle? ” 

‘‘ Well, when I meet a man who does n’t seem to 
see anything strange in my wearing of the kerchief I 
know he has travelled a bit and seen the like else- 
where in our democratic America. Other men look 
at it and I can see they think it odd, but they say 
nothing. Well, that is a sign to me that they have 
not travelled where the handkerchief is used in this 
way, but I know that they are gentlemen all the 
same.” 

There was a slight, a very slight, exulting note in 
his voice and I saw the faces of the men on the out- 
side of the crowd turn to observe the speaker. I 
thought the man who had set this ball a-rolling 
looked a trifle perturbed, but Apache was not look- 
ing at him. He lay back in his chair, gazing before 
him with a calm face. ** Then again,” he said leisurely, 
as though he had the whole night to himself, “ if I 
meet a man who sees it and asks why I wear it, I know 
that he is the sort of man about whom people say 


52 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

here, — in the language of the country, — * Don’t 
worry about him ; he ’s a hog from Ontario and 
never been out of the bush before ! ’ ” 

There was a strained silence after these words. 
Some of the more self-reliant men broke it with a 
laugh. The most were silent. 

I ’m a hog — eh? You call me a hog? ’’cried 
the man, after looking on the faces of those who sat 
around. I think he would have swallowed Apache 
Kid’s speech without a word of reply had it not been 
spoken before so large an audience. 

** I did not say so,” said Apache Kid, “ but if I 
were you, I would n’t make things worse by getting 
nasty. I tried to josh a man myself this afternoon, 
and do you know what I did? I called in on him 
to-night to see whether he had savveyed that I had 
been trying to josh him. I found out that he had 
savveyed, and do you know what I did ? I apologised 
to him ” 

“ D’ ye think I ’m going to apologise for askin’ you 
that question? ” 

“ You interrupt me,” said Apache Kid. ** I apolo- 
gised to him, I was going to say, like a man. As to 
whether I think you are going to apologise or not — 
no.” 

He turned and scrutinised the speaker from head 
to toe and back again. 

“ No,” he repeated decidedly. ‘‘ I should be very 
much surprised if you did.” 


FAREWELL TO BAKER CITY 53 

“ By Moses ! ” cried the man. " You take the 

thing very seriously. I only asked you ” and 

his voice grumbled off into incoherence. 

“ Yes,” said Apache Kid. “ I have a name for 
being very serious. Perhaps I did answer your ques- 
tion at too great length, however.” 

He turned for another scrutiny of his man, and 
broke out with such a peal of laughter, as he 
looked at him, that every one else followed suit; 
and the “josher,” with a crestfallen look, rose and 
went indoors. 

I was still smiling when Apache Kid came over 
to me. 

Could you be ready to go out to-morrow at 
noon on the Kettle River Gap stage?” he asked 
quietly. 

“ Certainly,” said I. “ We don’t start from here, 
then?” 

** No. That ’s to say, we don’t leave the haunts of 
men here. It is better not, for our purpose. Have 
you seen Canlan to-night? ” 

I told him no, but that I had been out for my 
evening constitutional and not near the city. 

He does n’t seem to be at this hotel to-night. I 
must go out and try to rub shoulders with him if 
he ’s in town. If I see him anywhere around town, I 
may not come back here to-night. If I don’t see 
him, I ’ll look in here later in the hope of rubbing 
against him. So if you don’t see me again to-night, 


54 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


you ’ll understand. To-morrow at noon, the Kettle 
River Gap stage.” 

But neither Apache Kid nor Canlan put in an ap- 
pearance all evening, and so I judged that elsewhere 
my friend had rubbed against ” Canlan. 

I was astonished to find on the morrow that I had, 
somewhere within me, a touch of fondness for Baker 
City, after all, despitefully though it had used me. 

You should stay on a bit yet,” said Mrs. Laughlin, 
when I told her I was going. ‘‘You can’t expect just 
to fall into a good job right away on striking a new 
town.” 

I should never have come here,” I explained, 
had it not been that I had a letter to a gentleman 
who was once in the city. The fact is, my people at 
home did not like the thought of me going out on 
speck, and the only man in the country I knew was 
in Baker City. But he had moved on before I 
arrived.” 

And where do you think of going now?” she 
asked. 

I evaded a direct answer, and yet answered 
truthfully ; 

“ Where I wanted to go was into a ranching coun- 
try. Mining never took my fancy. I believe there 
are some ranches on the Kettle River.” 

“ Oh, a terrible life ! ” she cried out. ‘‘ They ’re a 
tough lot, them Kettle River boys. They ’re mostly 
all fellows that have been cattle-punching and horse- 


FAREWELL TO BAKER CITY 55 

wrangling all their lives. They come from other 
parts where the country is getting filled up with 
grangers and sheepmen. I reckon it ’s because they 
feel kind o’ angry at their job in life being kind o' 
took from them by the granger and the sheepmen 
that they 're so tough. Oh ! they 're a tough lot ; and 
they 've got to be, to hold their own. Why, only the 
other day there a flock o’ sheep came along on the 
range across the Kettle. There was three shepherds 
with them, and a couple of Colonel Ney’s boys out 
and held them up. The sheep-herders shot one, and 
the other went home for the other boys, all running 
blood from another shot, and back they went, and 
laid out them three shepherds — just laid them out, 
my boy (d’ye hear?) — and ran the whole flock o’ 
sheep over into a canon one atop the other. Ney 
and the rest only wants men that can look after their 
rights that way ” 

How long she might have continued, kindly enough, 
to seek to dissuade me, I do not know. But I was 
forced to interrupt her and remind her I should lose 
the stage. 

“ Yes,” she said, I might just have kept my mouth 
shut and saved my breath. You lads is all the same. 
But mind what I say,” she cried after me, *‘you 
should stay on here and rustle yourself a good job. 
You ’re just going away to ‘ get it in the neck.’ 
Maybe you ’ll come back here again, sick and sorry. 
But seein’ you ’re going, God bless you, my lad ! ” 


56 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


and I was astonished to see her green eyes moist, 
and a soft, tender light on her lean, freckled face. 

‘‘So-long, then, lad, and good luck to you,” said 
her better half. “ If you strike into Baker City 
again — don’t forget the Laughlin House.” 

I was already in the street, half turning to hear 
their parting words, and with a final wave I de- 
parted, and (between you and me) there w^as a lump 
in my throat, and I thought that the Laughlin House 
was not such a bad sort of place at all to tarry in. 

In Baker Street, at the very corner, I saw Apache 
Kid advancing toward me, but he frowned to me 
and, when he raised his hand to his mouth to re- 
move his cigar, for a brief moment he laid a finger 
on his lip, and as he passed me, looking on the 
ground and walking slowly, he said: ‘*You go 
aboard the stage yourself and go on.” 

There was no time to say more in passing, and I 
wondered what might be the meaning of this. But 
when I came to where the stage-coach stood, there 
was Canlan among the little knot of idlers who were 
watching it preparing for the road. He saw me 
when I climbed aboard, and, stepping forward, held 
out his hand. “ Hullo, kid,” he said, pulling 
out?” 

‘‘Yes,” said I. 

“Coin’ to pastures green?” 

I nodded. 

“ Well, I want to thank you. I bin keepin* my eyes 


FAREWELL TO BAKER CITY 57 

open for you since that night. I want to thank you 
for that service you done me. Any time you want 

a ” but I did not catch his last words. The 

driver had mounted the box, gathered up the ‘‘rib- 
bons,” sprung back the brake, and with a sudden 
leap forward we were off in a whirl of dust. I 
nodded my head vigorously to Canlan, glad enough 
to see that he was only anxious to be friendly and 
to thank me for the service I had rendered him 
instead of embarrassing me with questions as to my 
destination. 

Away we went along Baker Street and shot out 
of the town, and there, just at the turning of the 
road, was Apache Kid by the roadside, and he 
stood aside to let the horses pass. The driver 
looked over his shoulder to make sure that he got 
on safely, but there was no need to stop the horses, 
for with a quick snatch Apache Kid leapt aboard 
and sat down, hot, and breathing a little short, be- 
side me. 


CHAPTER VII 

"The Man with the Red Head 


F two incidents that befell on the 
journey to Camp Kettle, I must tell 
you; of the first because it showed 
me Apache Kid’s bravery and calm ; 
and that the first of these two note- 
worthy incidents befell at the “ Rest Hotel ” where 
we had ** twenty minutes for supper ” while the 
monster head-lamps were lit for the night journey ; 
for between Baker City and Camp Kettle there was 
one “ all-night division,” as it was called. 

Apache Kid, after getting into the stage, sat silent for 
a much longer time than it took him to regain his wind. 

The high speed of travel with which we started was 
not kept up all the way, needless to say, such bursts 
being spectacular affairs for departures and arrivals. 
But with our six horses we nevertheless made good 
travel. 

Occasional trivialities of talk were exchanged be- 
tween the travellers — there were three others besides 
ourselves — and Apache Kid gave no indication by his 
manner that he and I were in any way specially con- 
nected. It was amusing indeed how he acted the 
part of one making friendly advances to me as though 



THE MAN WITH THE RED HEAD 59 

to a mere fellow-voyager, including me in his com- 
ments on the road, the weather, the coyotes that 
stood watching us passing with bared teeth and ugly 
grin. Later, when one of the others fell asleep and the 
remaining two struck up a conversation, he remarked : 

**Well, that was a hot run I had. Whenever I 
turned the far corner of Baker Street I took to my 
heels, doubled back behind the block, and sprinted 
the whole length of the town. I had to tell another 
lie, however, for I saw Canlan in Baker Street, just 
when I was thinking of getting aboard the stage. 
The driver was in having a drink before starting and, 
so as to prevent him raising questions about my 
blanket-roll lying in the stage and me not being 
there, I told him I had forgotten something at this 
end of the town and that I would run along and get 
the business done, and he could pick me up in pass- 
ing. Lucky he didn’t come out then or he would 
have wondered at the direction I took. You had n’t 
turned up, you see, and I knew I must let you know 
that it was all right.” 

He paused and added : '' But from to-day, no more 
lying. I don’t want when I come into this kingdom 
of mine to feel that I’ve got it at the expense of 
a hundred cowardly prevarications.” 

He sat considering a little while. 

“ If Canlan should by any chance get wind of our 

departure and follow up ” he began, and then 

closed his teeth sharply. 


6o 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


** What then ? ” I asked. 

He ’d be a dead man/’ said he, “ and a good rid- 
dance to the world.” 

I ’d think murder worse than lying,” said 1. 

Tut, tut ! ” said he. ‘‘ You look at this from a 
prejudiced standpoint. Donoghue and I are going 
out to a certain goal. We ’ve arranged to win some- 
thing for ourselves. Well, we ’re not going to win 
it with humbugging and lying. Where speech would 
spoil — we’ll be silent; otherwise we’re going to 
walk up like men and claim what’s coming to us, 
to use the phrase of the country. Heavens ! When 
I think of what I ’ve seen, and been, and done, and 
then think of all this crawling way of going about 

anything — it makes me tired, to use the ” and 

he muttered the rest as though by force of habit but 
knowing it quite unnecessary to say. 

There was nothing startling on our journey till the 
incident befell which I promised to tell you. It was 
when we came to the Rest House, a two-storey frame 
house, with a planking built up in front of it two 
storeys higher, with windows painted thereon in black 
on a white background, making it look, from the 
road, like a four-storey building. 

When we dismounted there one of the men on the 
coach said to the proprietor, who had come out to 
the door: ** What’s the colour of your hash slinger? 
Still got that Chink?” 

‘*I’ve still got the Chinaman waiter, sir,” replied 


THE MAN WITH THE RED HEAD 6i 


the proprietor, in a loud, determined voice, “ and if 
you don’t like to have him serve you — well you 


“ I intend to,” said the man, a big, red-faced, per- 
spiring fellow with bloodshot eyes. I intend to. 
I ’ll do the other thing, as you were about to say ; ” 
and he remained seated in the coach, turning his 
broad back on the owner of the Rest Hotel. 

“ I won’t eat here, either,” said Apache Kid to me, 
“ not so much from desiring in Rome to do as the 
Romans do, as because I likewise object to the Chink, 
as he is called. You see, he works for what not even 
a white woman of the most saving kind could live 
upon. But there is such a peculiarly fine cocktail to 
be had in this place that I cannot deny myself it. 
Come,” and we passed wide around the heels of four 
restive cow ponies that were hitched at the door, 
with lariats on their saddle-pommels and Winchester 
rifles in the side-buckets. 

“ Some cowboys in here,” said Apache Kid, up 
from Ney’s place likely, after strayed stock,” and he 
led the way to the bar, and seemed rather aggrieved 
for a moment that I drew the line at cocktails. 

When we entered the bar-room I noticed a man 
who turned to look at us remain gazing, not looking 
away as did the others. Instead, he bored Apache 
Kid with a pair of very keen grey eyes. 

Apache evidently was known to the barman, who 
chatted to him easily while concocting the drink of 


62 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

which I had heard such a good account, and both 
seemed oblivious to the other occupants of the room. 
A flutter of air made me look round to the door again. 
Apache Kid had said no word of Donoghue, but I 
remembered Donoghue’s remark as to seeing me later, 
in a day or two, and half expected him to appear here. 
But the door was not opening to a newcomer. In- 
stead, the man who had cast so keen a look on my 
friend was going out, and as he went he glanced 
backwards toward Apache Kid again. 

I stepped up to Apache Kid and said : “ I don’t 
like, the manner of that man who went out just now. 
I ’m sure he means mischief of some kind. He gave 
you a mighty queer look.” 

‘‘What was he like?” Apache asked, and I de- 
scribed him, but apparently without waking any 
memory or recognition in Apache’s mind. 

“Who was that who went out? ” he asked, turning 
to the barman. 

“ Did n’t observe, sir,” was the reply. 

“ O ! Thought I knew his ” Apache Kid began, 

and then said suddenly, as though annoyed at himself: 
“ No, I ’m damned if I did — did n’t think anything 
of the kind. Did n’t even see him.” 

The barman smiled, and as Apache Kid moved 
along the counter away from us to scrutinise an 
announcement posted on the wall, said quietly : “ He 
don’t look as if he hed bin drinkin’ too much. 
Strange how it affects different men; some in the 


THE MAN WITH THE RED HEAD 63 


face, some in the legs. Some keep quite fresh look- 
ing, but when they talk they just talk no manner of 
sense at all.” 

I could have explained what was “ wrong ” with 
Apache Kid, but it was not necessary. Instead, I 
stepped back and took my seat with what the bar- 
man called, with a slight sneer, my ** soft drink.” 

Apache Kid turned about and leant upon the 
counter. He sipped his cocktail with evident rel- 
ish, and suddenly the door flew open. Those in 
the room were astonished, for the newcomer had 
in his grasp one of those heavy revolvers, — a 
Colt, — and he was three paces into the room and 
had his weapon levelled on Apache Kid before we 
had recovered from our surprise. 

Well ! ” he cried, “ I have you now ! ” and behind 
him in the doorway, the door being slightly ajar, I 
caught a glimpse of the man who had gone out so 
surreptitiously a few moments before. 

Apache Kid’s eyes were bright, but there seemed 
no fear on his face ; I could see none. 

“ You have me now,” he said quietly. 

The man behind the gun, a tall fellow with close- 
cropped red hair, lowered his revolver hand. 

“ I 've waited a while for this,” he said. 

'‘Yes,” said Apache Kid. "To me it is incom- 
prehensible that a man’s memory should serve so 
long; but you have the drop on me.” Here came 
a smile on his lips, and I had a suspicion that it 


64 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

was a forced smile ; but to smile at all in such a pass 
I thought wonderful. “ You have the drop on me, 
Jake, — in the language of the country.” 

The man Jake lowered his hand wholly then. 

You can come away with that old gag of yourn 
about the language o’ the country, and you right up 
against it like this? No, Apache Kid, I can’t — say ! ” 
he broke off, ‘‘ are you heeled ? ” 

And I thought to myself: “ In the language of the 
country that means, * are you armed ? ’ ” 

I am not,” said Apache, lightly. 

The red-headed man — he looked like a cattleman, 
for he wore skin leggings over his trousers and spurs 
to his high-heeled boots — sent his revolver down 
with a jerk into the holster at his hip. 

** I can’t do it,” he said. You ’re too gritty a 
man for me to put out that way.” 

There was a quick jingle of his spurs, and he was 
gone. 

A long sigh filled the room. 

“ A gritty man, right enough,” said one man near 
by. “ A pair of gritty men, I ’m thinking.” 

Apache Kid drained his glass, and I heard him say 
to the barman : 

“ Well, he ’s no coward. A coward would have 
shot whenever he stepped in at the door, and given 
me no chance. And even if he had n’t done that,” 
he continued, arguing the thing aloud, in a way I 
had already recognised as natural to him, as though 


THE MAN WITH THE RED HEAD 65 

he must scrutinise and diagnose everything, “ even 
if he had made up his mind to let me off, he would 
have backed out behind his gun for fear of me. No, 
he ’s not a coward.*' 

But you told him you were n’t heeled,” said the 
barman. 

“ Oh ! But I might have been lying,” said Apache 
Kid, and frowned. 

“ He was n’t lying, I bet,” said the man near me. 
** A cool man like that there don’t lie. It ’s beneath 
him to lie.” 

But Apache Kid did not seem to relish the gaze 
of the room, and turned his back on it and on me, 
leaning his elbows on the bar again and engaging in 
talk with the barman, who stood more erect now, I 
thought, and held his head higher, with the air of a 
man receiving some high honour. 

And just then, ‘‘ All aboard ! ” we heard the stage- 
driver intone at the door. 

When we came forth again there were only two 
horses before the hotel. 

The red-headed man and his friend are gone,” 
thought I, as I climbed to my place, and away we 
lumbered through the night, the great headlights 
throwing their radiance forward on the road in 
overlapping cones that sped before us, the dark- 
ness chasing us up behind. 


S 


CHAPTER VIII 


What Befell at the Half-Way House 



F the second incident that befell on the 
journey to Camp Kettle I must tell 
you because it had a far-reaching effect 
and a good deal more to do with our 
expedition than could possibly have 


been foretold at the time. 

Of the incident at the Rest House, which I have 
just narrated, Apache Kid said nothing, and as 
curiosity is not one of my failings (many others 
though I have), to question I never dreamt; and 
besides, in the West, even the inquisitive learn to 
listen without inquiring, and he evidently had no in- 
tention of explaining. But when, at last, after a 
very long silence during which our three fellow- 
travellers looked at him in the dusk of the coach 
(whose only light was that reflected from the lamp-lit 
road) with interest, and admiration, I believe, he said 
in a low voice which I alone could hear, owing to the 
creaking and screaming of the battered vehicle : “ I 
think you and I had better be strangers ; only fellow- 
travellers thrown together by chance, not fellow- 
plotters journeying together with design.” 


AT THE HALF-WAT HOUSE 67 

** I understand,” said I, and this resolution we ac- 
cordingly carried out. 

After a night and a day’s journey, with only short 
stops for watering and “ snatch meals,” we were 
hungry and sleepily happy and tired when we came 
to the “ Half-Way-to-Kettle Hotel ” standing up 
white-painted and sun-blistered in the midst of the 
sand and sage-brush; and I, for my part, paid little 
heed to the hangers-on who watched our arrival, 
several of whom stretched hands simultaneously for 
the honour of catching the reins which the driver 
flung aside in his long-practised, aggressive manner — 
a manner without which he had seemed something 
less than a real stage-driver. 

I noticed that Apache Kid had taken his belt and 
revolver from his blanket-roll and now, indeed, was 
heeled ” for all men to see, for it was a heavy Colt 
he used. 

Indoors were tables set, in a room at one side of 
the entrance, with clean, white table-cloths and a 
young woman waiting to attend our wants after we 
had washed the dust of the way from our faces and 
hands and brushed the grit from our clothes with a 
horse brush which hung in the cool though narrow 
hall-way. 

Apache Kid sat at one table, I at another, two of 
our fellow-voyagers at a third. The remaining 
traveller announced to the bearded proprietor who 
stood at the door, in tones of something very like 


68 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


pride, that he wanted no supper except half a pound 
of cheese, a bottle of pickles, and a medium bottle of 
whisky. 

This request, to my surprise, was received without 
the slightest show of astonishment ; indeed, it seemed 
to mark the speaker out for something of a great 
man in the eyes of the proprietor who, with a “Very 
good, sir — step into the bar-room, sir,” ushered the 
red-eyed man into the chamber to right, a dim-lit 
place in which I caught the sheen of glasses with 
their pale reflection in the dark-stained tables on 
which they stood. 

In the dining-room I found my eyes following the 
movements of the young woman who attended there. 
A broad-shouldered lass she was, and the first thing 
about her that caught me, that made me look upon 
her with something of contentment after our dusty 
travel, was, I think, her clean freshness. She wore a 
white blouse, or, I believe, to name that article of 
apparel rightly, with the name she would have used, 
a “shirt-waist.” It fitted close at her wrists which I 
noticed had a strong and gladsome curve. The 
dress she wore was of dark blue serge. She was 
what we men call “ spick and span ” and open-eyed 
and honest, with her exuberant hair tidily brushed 
back and lying in the nape of her neck softly, with a 
golden glint among the dark lustre of it as she passed 
the side window through which the golden evening 
sunlight streamed. I had been long enough in the 


AT THE HALF-WAY HOUSE 69 

country to be not at all astonished with the bearing, 
as of almost reverence, with which the men treated 
her, tagging a “miss’* to the end of their every 
sentence. The stage-driver, too, for all he was so 
terrible and important a man, “ missed” her and “if 
you pleased ” her to the verge of comicality. 

I think she herself had a sense of humour, for I 
caught a twinkle in her eye as she journeyed to and 
fro. That she did so without affectation spoke a deal 
for her power over her pride. A woman in such a 
place, I should imagine, must constantly find it ad- 
visable to remind herself that there are very few of 
the gentler sex in the land and a vast number of men, 
and tell herself that it is not her captivating ways 
alone that are responsible for the extreme of respect 
that is lavished upon her. She chatted to all easily 
and pleasantly, with a sparkle in her wide-set eyes. 

“ I think I remember of you on the way up to 
Baker City,” she said ; “ about two months ago, 
was n’t it? ” 

And when I had informed her that it was even so 
she asked me how I had fared there. I told her I 
thought I might have fared better had I been in 
a ranching country. 

“ Can you ride ? ” she asked. 

I told her no — at least, not in the sense of the 
word here. I could keep a seat on some horses, but 
the horses I had seen here were such as made me 
consider myself hardly a “ rider ” at all. 


70 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


She thought it ‘‘ great,” she said, to get on horse- 
back and gallop to the horizon and back,” as she 
put it. 

It makes you feel so free and glad all over.” 

I would soon learn, she said, but “ the boys ” 
would have their fun with me to start. 

All this was a broken talk, between her attending 
on the tables ; and as she kept up a conversation at 
each table as she visited it I could not help consider- 
ing that her mind must be particularly alert. Per- 
haps it was these rides “ to the horizon and back ” 
that kept her mind so agile and her form and face so 
pure. It was when she was bringing me my last 
course, a dish of apricots, that a man with a rolling 
gait, heavy brows, and red, pluffy hands, a big, un- 
wieldy man in a dark, dusty suit, came in and sat 
down at my table casting his arm over the back of 
the chair. 

This fellow “ my deared ” her instead of following 
the fashion of the rest, and surveyed me, with his 
great head flung back and his bulgy eyes travelling 
over me in an insolent fashion. When she returned 
with his first order he put up his hand and chucked 
her under the chin, as it is called. 

“ Sir,” said she, with a pucker in her brows, ** I 
have told you before that I did n’t like that ; ” and 
she turned away. 

My vis-^-vis at that turned to his soup, first glanc- 
ing at me and winking, and then bending over his 


AT THE HALF-WAY HOUSE 71 

plate he supped with great noise, — something more 
than “ audible ” this, — and perennial suckings of his 
moustache. 

When the maid came again at his rather peremp- 
tory rattle on the plate, Angry ? ” he asks, and 
then ** Tuts ! should n’t be angry,” and he made 
as though to embrace her waist, but she stepped 
back. 

He turned to me, and, wagging his head toward 
her, remarked: 

She does n’t cotton to me.” 

I make no reply, looking blankly in his face as 
though I would say : “ I don’t want anything to do 
with you ” — just like that. 

‘‘ Ho ! ” he said, and blew through his nose at me, 
thrusting out his wet moustache. “ Are you deaf or 
saucy ? ” 

I looked at him then alert, and rapped out sharply ; 
** I had rather not speak to you at all, sir. But as to 
your remark, I am not astonished that the young lady 
does not cotton to you.” 

With the tail of my eye, as the phrase is, I knew 
that there was a turning of faces toward me then, and 
my lady drew herself more erect. 

Ho ! ” cried the bully. “ Here ’s a fine how-de-do 
about nothing ! You want to learn manners, young 
man. I reckon you have n’t travelled much, else 
you would know that gentlemen setting down to- 
gether at table are not supposed to be so mighty 


72 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


high-toned as to want nothin^ to do with each 
other.” 

I heard him to an end, and, laying down my spoon, 
“ With gentlemen — yes,” I said, there can be no 
objection to talk, even though your remark is an 
evasion of the matter at present. But seeing you 
have gone out of your way to blame my manners, I 
will make bold to say I don’t like yours.” 

The girl stepped forward a pace and, Sir, sir,” she 
began to me and the bully was glaring on me and 
crying out, “ Gentlemen ! ‘ between gentlemen ’ you 
say, and what you insinuate with that?” 

But I waved aside the girl and to him I began : 

‘‘ I have been in this country some time, sir, and I 
may tell you that I find you at the top of one list in 
my mental notes. Up to to-night I have never seen 

a woman insulted in the West ” and then, as is a 

way I have and I suppose shall have a tendency to 
till the end of my days, though I ever strive to master 
it (and indeed find the periods between the loss of 
that mastery constantly lengthening), I suddenly 
** flared up.” 

To say more in a calm voice was beyond me and I 
cried out : But I want no more talk from you, sir ; 
understand that.” 

“ Ho ! ” he began. ‘‘ You ” 

But I interrupted him with : ** No more, sir ; 

understand ! ” 

And then in a tone which I dare say savoured very 


AT THE HALF-WAY HOUSE 73 

much as though I thought myself quite a little ruler 
of men, I said : “ I have told you twice now not to 
say more to me. I only tell you once more.” 

“ Good Lord ! ” he cried. “ Do you think you can 
scare me?” 

** That ’s the third time,” said I, mastering the 
quaver of excitement in my voice, lest he should take 
it for a quaver of fear. “ Next time I don’t speak at 
all.” 

“ Maybe neither do I,” said he, and he lifted the 
water carafe as though to throw the contents on me, 
but he never did so ; for I leant quickly across the 
table and with the flat of my hand slapped him 
soundly on the cheek, as I might have slapped a side 
of bacon, and, “ That,” said I, '' is for insulting the 
lady.” 

It was ** clear decks for action ” then, for he flung 
back his chair and, spinning around the end of the 
table, aimed a blow at me ; but I had scarce time to 
guard, so quick was he for all his size. I took the 
simplest guard of all — held my left arm out rigidly, 
the fist clenched, and when he lunged forward to de- 
liver the blow I ducked my shoulder but kept my fist 
still firm. 

It was a fierce blow that he aimed, but it slipped 
over my shoulder and then there was an unpleasant 
sound — a soft, sloppy sound — for his nose and my 
rigid fist had met. Then the blood came, quite a 
fountain. But this only heated him and he dealt 


74 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


another blow which I received with the cross-guard,” 
one of the best guards in the ** straight on ” system 
of boxing, a system generally belittled, but very useful 
to know. 

I think he had never seen the guard in his life, 
there was so astonished a look on his face; but 
before he recovered I had him down with a jar on 
the floor so that the floor and windows rattled, — 
and his brains, too, I should imagine. 

He sat up glaring but something dazed and shaken. 
God forgive me that I have so feeble a control of my 
passions once they are roused and such a horrible 
spirit of exultation ! These have their punishment, of 
course, for a man who exults over such a deed, in- 
stead of leaving it to the onlookers to congratulate, 
falls in their estimation. 

However, to give over moralising, I cried out, as he 
sat up there on the floor with the blood on his face 
and chin and trickling on his thick neck : “ Come 
on ! Sit up ! If you lie malingering, I ’ll kick you 
to your feet ! I ’m only beginning on you.” 

I think the onlookers must have smiled to hear me, 
for, though so far I had got the better, the match was 
an absurd one. But my foe was a man of a bad 
spirit; without rising he flung his hand round to 
his hip. 

I had a quick glimpse of the girl clasping her 
hands and heard the gasp of her breath and her 
voice : ** Stop that now — none of that ! ” 


AT THE HALF-WAY HOUSE 75 

But another voice, very complacent and with a 
mocking, boyish ring, broke in: 

“ Throw up your hands, you son of a dog ! ” And 
then I ceased to be the centre of interest and my 
brain cleared, for Apache Kid was sitting at his table, 
his chair pushed back a little way, his legs wide apart 
as he leant forward, his left hand on the left knee, his 
right forearm lying negligently on the right leg — 
and loosely in his hand was a revolver pointed at 
the gentleman on the floor. 

The other two were looking on from under their 
brows, the stage-driver sitting beaming on the scene. 
The girl swung round on Apache with an infinite 
relief discernible in her face and gesture. The cook 
who had come from the rear of the room, having 
seen the business through the wicket window from 
his pantry, I suppose, cried out : “ Make him take 
out his gun and hand it over, sir.” 

Apache did not turn at the voice, but, “You hear 
that piece of advice ? ” said he. “ Well, I ’m not going 
to take it. You can keep your little toy in your hip- 
pocket. Do you know why? Because you can do 
no harm here with it. Before you could get your 
hand an inch to it my Colt’s bullet would have let 
all the wind sighing out of your contemptible 
carcass.” 

Then he gave a laugh, a chuckling, quiet, hearty 
laugh in his throat, hardly opening his lips and 
added: “ In the language of the country, sir, I would 


76 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


advise you to shake a leg — to get up and get — hike 

— before I plug you.” 

And up rose the man, a commercial traveller (as 
the girl told me afterwards when trying to thank me 

— for what I cannot say, as I told her at the time), 
or a ** drummer,” as the name is, who had been there 
since yesterday’s Baker-bound stage arrived, drink- 
ing at the bar and making himself disagreeable in 
the dining-room. 

He looked a sorry figure as he shuffled from the 
chamber. 

I turned to Apache Kid and began : ** You saved 

my life, A ” but his frown reminded me that we 

were strangers; — *‘sir,” I ended, ‘*and I have to 
thank you.” 

** That ’s all right, sir ; that ’s all right, sir. Don’t 
mention it,” said Apache Kid, throwing his revolver 
back into its holster. 

That was the end of the drummer ; we saw him no 
more that night, and when we came down in the 
morning we were told he had gone on to Baker City 
with the stage which went west earlier by an hour 
than the one toward the railway, the one we were 
to continue in — part of its journey. 

But when we came to settle our bill the proprietor 
drew his hand under his long beard and put his head 
on the side — reminding me of a portrait of Morris I 
had seen — and remarked, looking from Apache to 
me and back again : ** Well, gentlemen, I ’d consider 


AT THE HALF-WAT HOUSE 77 

it a kind of honour to be allowed to remember that 
I did n’t ask nothing for putting you up. I should n’t 
like to remember about you, any time, and to think 
to myself that I had charged you up. I’d be kind 
of honoured if you ’d let me remember I did n’t take 
nothing from you.” 

We did not speak, but Apache’s bow was some- 
thing to see, and with a hearty shake of the hand we 
mounted the stage. 

“ Look up tew the window, my lad,” said the driver, 
gathering up his reins. “ Look up tew the window 
and get what ’s cornin’ to you ; a smile to warm the 
cockles of your heart for the rest o’ the trip.” 

And sure enough we had a smile and a wave of 
a strong and graceful hand from the upper window 
and raised our hats and bowed and were granted 
another wave and another also from the proprietor 
— and a wave from the cook at the gable of the 
house. And looking round again, as we rolled off, 
there was the fresh white girl standing at the door 
now. 

She raised her hand to her lips and I felt a little 
sorry in my heart. I did not like to think she was 
going to “ blow a kiss ; ” it would be a cheapening 
of herself methought. Then I felt a little regretful, 
for she did not blow a kiss, but kept her hand to her 
mouth as long as she remained there. 

We went on in silence and then I heard Apache 
Kid murmur: *'Did she mean it or did she not?” 


78 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


** Mean what?” I asked. 

“What do you mean?” said he, alert suddenly. 
“ Oh ! I was talking to myself; ” and then he said in 
a louder tone : “ Excuse me, sir, for asking, but do 
you not carry a gun?” 

“ No,” said I, with a smile part at this revival of 
his old caution and part at something else. 

“ Can you shoot? ” 

I shook my head. 

“ Well,” said he, “ this period of the history of the 
West is a transition period. The old order changeth, 
giving place to new. Fists are settling trouble that 
was formerly settled with the gun. But the trouble 
of the transition period is that you can never be sure 
whether it’s to be a gun or the fists. Men like that 
drummer, too, carry a gun — but they carry it out of 
sight and you don’t know it’s there for certain. I 
advocate the gun carried openly; and I think you 
should begin right away learning its use. I must 
look up that remark of Carlyle’s, first time I can, 
about the backwoods being the place where manners 
flourish. I want to see from the context if he did n’t 
really mean it. Most people think it was sarcasm, 
but if it was, it should n’t have been. Manners do 
flourish in all backwoods, until the police come in 
and the gun goes out, and it ’s the presence of the 
gun that keeps everybody mannerly. The gun does it. 
Now see — you hold a revolver like this,” and he ex- 
emplified as he spoke. “ The usual method of grasp- 


AT THE HALF-WAY HOUSE 79 

ing a revolver is with the forefinger pressing the trig- 
ger, and even many experts follow this method ; but, 
with all due respect to the advocates of that method, 
it is not the best. The best way to hold a revolver is 
with the second finger pressing the trigger, the fore- 
finger extending along the side of the barrel like this, 
you see. That is the great desideratum in en- 
deavouring to make a shot with a revolver — keeping 
the thing steady. It kicks under the muscular action 
required to pull the trigger with the forefinger, and 
unless one is thoroughly practised the bullet will fly 
above the mark aimed at. Remember, too, to grip 
tight, or with these heavy guns you may get your 
thumb knocked out. Then you throw your hand up 
and bring it down and just point at what you want to 
kill — like that ! ” 

“ Biff! ” went the revolver, and I saw the top leaves 
on a sage-brush fly in the air. 

The horses snorted and leapt forward and the 
driver flung a look over his shoulder, a gleeful look, 
and, gathering the reins again, cried out, ** My gosh, 
boys 1 Keep it up, and we ’ll make speed into Camp 
Kettle. Say, this is like old days ! ” he cried again, 
when Apache Kid snapped a second time and we 
went rocking onward. 

So we “ kept it up,” Apache indicating objects for 
me to aim at, watching my manner of aiming, and 
coaching me as we went. It seemed to be infectious, 
for the traveller who had before kept to himself 


8o 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


whipped out a “ gun ” from some part of his clothing 
and potted away at the one side while we potted at the 
other. The other two, the one who had suppered on 
cheese, pickles, and whisky, and breakfasted on the 
same, like enough, and the man with whom he had 
struck up an acquaintanceship, wheeled about and 
potted backwards ; and at that the driver grew abso- 
lutely hilarious, got out his whip and cracked it loud 
as the revolver shots, crying out now and again; 

Say, this is the old times back again ! ” and so we 
volleyed along the uneven road till dusk fell on the 
mountains to north and the bronze yellow plain to 
south and sunset crimsoned the western sky. And 
lights were just beginning to be lit when, in a flutter 
of dust and banging of the leathern side-blinds and 
screaming of the gritty wheels, we came rocking down 
the hillside into Camp Kettle. 

But at sight of that Apache Kid turned to me, and 
with the look of a man suddenly recollecting, he said, 
in a tone of one ashamed : ** Well, well ! Here we 
are advertising ourselves for all we ’re worth, when 
our plan should have been one of silence and self- 
effacement.” 

Well,” said I, “ we can creep quietly up to bed 
when we reach the hotel here, and let no one see us, 
if that is what you are anxious about.” 

You’ll have no more bed now, Francis,” he said 
quietly. ** No more bed under a roof, no more hotel 
now until ” and here for the first time he ac- 


AT THE HALF-WAT HOUSE 8i 

knowledged in actual, direct speech the goal of our 
journey, “ until we lie down to sleep with our guns 

in our hands and our boots on ” he put his 

mouth to my ear and whispered, ** in the Lost 
Cabin.” 


6 


CHAPTER IX 

First Blood 


would hardly astonish me, and cer- 
tainly not offend me, to know that 
you found a difficulty in believing 
possible such a sight as Camp Kettle 
presented on our arrival. It made 
me shudder to see it, and the picture is one that I 
never remember without melancholy. 

‘‘They seem to be celebrating here,” said he of 
the red eyes as a hideous din of shrieking and 
curses came up to us. 

And “ celebrating ” they were, that day being, as 
Apache Kid now recollected, the anniversary of the 
first discovery of mineral in that place. Of such a 
kind was this celebration that the stage-driver had 
to dismount and drag no fewer than three drunken 
men from the road, which irritated him considerably, 
spoiling as it did his final dash up to the hotel door. 
But it served our turn better; for here, before en- 
tering Camp Kettle, we alighted. 

Camp Kettle is built in the very midst of the 
woods, the old veterans of the forest standing be- 
tween the houses which stretch on either side of 
the waggon road, looking across the road on each 



FIRST BLOOD 83 

other from between the firs, so that a traveller com- 
ing to the place by road is fairly upon it before he 
is well aware. But on that day — or night — there 
were strips of bunting hanging across the waggon 
road, not from the houses, for they were all mere 
log huts, but from the trees on either side; and 
the forest rang with shouting and drunken laughter. 
Just where we alighted were several great, hewn 
stones by the roadside, with marks of much tramp- 
ling around them. 

‘‘ There ’s been a rock-drilling contest here,” said 
Apache Kid, pointing to the holes in the centre of 
these rocks, as we struck into the bush and came 
into Kettle from behind. 

Here and there, backward from the front huts, 
were others dotted about in cleared spaces, and all 
were lit up, and doors standing open and men com- 
ing and going, lurching among the wandering tree- 
roots and falling over stumps still left there. And 
the whole bush round about you might have thought 
the scene of a recent battle, what with the drunken 
men lying here and there in all manner of attitudes, 
with twisted bodies and sprawled legs. 

Some few fellows in their coming and going spoke 
to us, crying on us to “ come and have a drink,” 
but it was only necessary for us to move on heed- 
lessly so as to evade them — so dazed and puzzled 
were they all and seemed to lose sight of us at 
once, wheeling about and crying out to the twilit 


84 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

woods. At some of the cabins horses stood hitched, 
snorting and quivering ever and again, their ears 
falling back and pricking forward in terror. 

“ For once,” said Apache Kid to me, “ I have to 
be grateful for the presence of the despised Dago 
and the Chinee. The Dago may be a little fuddled, 
but not too much to attend to our wants in the way 
of horses, and he is not likely to talk afterwards. 
The Chinee will be perfectly calm among all this, 
and he, for a certainty, will not speak. Here ’s the 
Chinee joint. Come along.” 

He thrust open the door of a long, low house and 
we entered into a babel of talk, that ceased on the 
instant, and closed the door behind us. 

We had a glimpse of a back room with a group 
of Chinamen who looked up on us with eyes a trifle 
agitated, but, I suppose on seeing that we were not 
the worse of liquor, they bent again over their tables, 
and we heard the rattle of dominoes again and their 
quick, voluble, pattering talk. 

A very staid, calm-faced Chinaman, his high fore- 
head lit up by a lamp which hung over a desk by 
which he stood, turned to us, and, looking on us 
through large horn spectacles, bowed with great 
dignity. 

“ Good evening,” said Apache Kid. 

** Good evening,” said he. 

“ We want three mats of rice,” said Apache Kid, 
and this placid gentleman called out a word or two 


FIRST BLOOD 


85 


to one of his assistants, and the rice was hauled down 
from the shelf. Then we bought three small bags of 
flour and two sides of bacon, and all this was tied up 
for us and set by the door to await our return ; and 
off we went out of that place with the smell of strange 
Eastern spices in our nostrils. 

** Not so long ago,” said Apache Kid, ** these fel- 
lows would not have been tolerated here at all. Then 
they were allowed an entrance and tolerated; but 
they only sold rice to begin with, and nothing more, 
except, perhaps, cranberries, to the hotel, which they 
gathered on the foothills. Now, as you see, they run 
a regular store. But on such nights as this it be- 
hooves them to keep indoors lest the white populace 
regret having allowed them within their gates. But 
John Chinaman is very wise. He keeps out of sight 
when it is advisable. Here ’s the livery stable.” 

The stout Italian who stood at the door of the 
stable, toying with a cigarette, frowned on us through 
the darkness, and seemed a trifle astonished, I thought, 
at our request for horses. But he bade us follow him, 
and by the aid of two swinging lamps Apache Kid 
selected three horses, two for riding and one pack- 
horse. 

** But you ain’t pull out to-night, heh? ” said the 
Italian in his broken English. 

Yes,” said Apache. 

** You going down to Placer Camp or up to 
mountains? ” 


86 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


Apache Kid was drawing the cinch tight on the 
pony I was to ride (the Italian was saddling the 
other), and he merely turned and shot the questioner 
such a look as made me feel — well, that I should not 
like to be the Italian. 

I thought then that, for all his slim build, this part- 
ner of mine, so quiet, so deliberate, must have seen 
and done strange things in his day, and been in 
peculiar corners to learn a glance like that. If ever 
a look on a man’s face could cow another, it was such 
a look as Apache Kid flung to the Italian then. 

Back to the Chinese store we went, leading our 
steeds, and there roped on our pack. 

** Do you sell rifles? ” asked Apache Kid. 

‘‘ Yes, sir, vely good lifle,” and so Apache added a 
Winchester, which was thrust atop of the load, and 
two of the small boxes of cartridges. 

This was just finished when a voice broke in: 
“ Coin’ prospectin’ ? ” 

We wheeled about to see a foolish-faced man, with 
shifty eyes and slavering mouth, standing by, with 
firm enough legs, to be sure, but his body swaying 
left and right from the hips as though it were set 
there on a swivel. 

“ Yes,” said Apache. 

Going prospectin’ without a pick or a hammer or 
a shu-huvel,” said the man, and hiccoughed and drib- 
bled again at the mouth, and then he sat down on 
a tree-stump and broke out in a horrible drunken 


FIRST BLOOD 


!z 

weeping, the most distressful kind of intoxicated fool 
I ever saw, and moaned to himself: Goin' pros- 
pectin’ without a — with on’y a gun at the belt and 
a Winchester,” and he put his hand to his forehead 
and, bending forward, wept copiously. I looked on 
the Chinaman who stood by, placid and expression- 
less, and I was ashamed of my race. 

For the love of God,” said Apache, “ let us get 
out of this pitiful hell — Good-bye, John,” to the 
Chinaman, who raised his lean hand and waved in 
farewell in a gesture of the utmost suavity and respect, 
and then we struck south (the Chinaman entering his 
store), and left that pitiable creature slobbering upon 
the tree-stump, left the din and outcrying and hide- 
ousness behind us, my very stomach turning at the 
sounds, and Apache, too, I think, affected unpleas- 
antly. We went directly to the south upon the track 
that led to the Placer Camp on Kettle River. 

On either side of us the forest thinned out there, 
but the place was full of a wavering light, for the 
tree-stumps to left and right of the track were all 
smouldering with little, flickering blue flames, and 
sending up a white smoke, for this is the manner of 
clearing the forest after the trees are felled. 

Through this place of flickering lights and wav- 
ing shadows we still progressed, leading our horses. 
Here Apache Kid looked round sharply, and at the 
moment I heard a sound as of a twig snapping, but 
from what quarter the sound came I could not tell. 


88 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

We were both then looking back, half expecting to 
see some one issue forth behind us into the light of 
that space where the tree-stumps spluttered and flared 
and smoked. 

“ Perhaps it was just one of these stumps crackling," 
said I. 

**It did n’t sound just like that ; however, I suppose 
that was all," Apache Kid replied. Well this is our 
route now." And we struck west through the timber, 
back in the direction that Baker City lay, keeping in a 
line parallel to the waggon road. And ever and again 
as we went Apache emitted a low, long whistle and 
hearkened and whistled again, and hearkened and 
seemed annoyed at the silence alone replying. 

Then, coming to the end of the place of smould- 
ering stumps, we struck back as though to come out 
on the waggon road before its entering into Camp 
Kettle. Where in thunder is Donoghue ? " snapped 
Apache Kid, and suddenly the horse I was leading 
swung back with a flinging up of its head. Apache 
Kid was leading the other two and they also began a 
great dancing and snorting. 

“We have you covered !" cried a harsh voice. 

“ No tricks now ! Just you keep holt of them reins. 
If you let ’em drop, your name is Dennis ! That ’ll 
be something to occupy your hands." 

I think the voice quieted the horses, if it perturbed 
us, for they became tractable on the instant and 
ceased their trembling and waltzing. And there, 


FIRST BLOOD 


risen out of a bush before us, stood two men, one with 
a Winchester at the ready and the other with his left 
hand raised, the open palm facing us, and a revolver 
looking at me over that, his “ gun hand ” being stead- 
ied on the left wrist. 

I had seen Apache Kid in a somewhat similar pre- 
dicament before, but his coolness again amazed me. 
And, if I may be permitted to say so, I astonished 
myself likewise, for after the first leap of the heart 
I stood quite easy, holding my horse — more like 
an onlooker than a participant in this unchancy 
occurrence. 

“ I think you have made a mistake, gentlemen,” 
said Apache Kid. 

“ Oh, no mistake at all,” said he with the Winches- 
ter. “I’ve just come out to make you an offer, 
Apache Kid.” 

“ You have my name,” said Apache Kid, “ but I 
haven’t the pleasure of yours.” 

“ Why, ” said I, “ I ’ve seen that man at the Laugh- 
lin House ; ” and at the same moment Apache Kid 
recognised the other in a sudden flickering up of one 
of the nighest stumps. 

“Why, it’s my old inquisitive friend — the hog,” 
said he, looking on him. “ Where did you learn that 
theatrical style of holding up a gun to a man ? 
Won’t you introduce your friend ? ” 

“ That ’s all right,” said the other. “ I want you to 
listen to me. Here ’s what we are offering you. You 


90 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


can either come right along with us to Camp Kettle 
and draw out a sketch plan of where the Lost Cabin 
Mine lies, or else he raised his Winchester. 

Apache Kid whistled softly. 

** How would it suit you,” said he, after what 
seemed a pause for considering the situation into 
which we had fallen, ‘‘ if I drew up the sketch after 
you plugged me with the Winchester?” 

“ O ! ” cried the man. “ The loss of a fortune ^s on 
the one hand. The loss o’ your life ’s on the other. 
We give you the choice.” 

“ It seems to me,” said Apache Kid, “ that your 
hand is the weaker in this game ; for on your side is 
the loss of a fortune or the taking of a life.” 

“ I ’d call that the stronger hand, I guess,” said the 
man. 

“ Well, all a matter of the point of view,” murmured 
Apache Kid, with an appearance of great ease. But 
presuming that I am aware of the location of that 
place, what assurance could I have that once you had 
the sketch in your hands you would n’t slip my wind 
— in the language of the country ?” 

He with the revolver, I noticed, glanced a moment 
at his partner at that, but quickly turned his attention 
to us again. “ Besides, I might draw up a fake map 
and send you off on a wild goose chase,” said Apache 
Kid, as though with a sudden inspiration. 

** We’ve thought of that,” said he with the Win- 
chester, and you ’d just wait with a friend of ours 


FIRST BLOOD 


while we went to make sure o’ the genewinness o’ 
your plan.” 

“ Oh ! That ’s what I ’d do ? ” said Apache Kid, 
and stood cheeping with his lips a little space and 
staring before him. Then turning to me, “ I ’m up 
against it now,” he said, “ in the language of the 
country. The terms are all being made for me and 

at this rate ” he swung round again to these two 

— “ you really mean that you are so bent on this that 
if I did n’t speak up, did n’t give you the information 
you wanted, you’d — eh — kill me — kill the goose 
with the golden eggs ? ” 

I marked a change in the tone of Apache’s voice, 
and looking at him noticed that there was a glitter in 
his eye and his breath was coming through his nostrils 
in fierce gusts, and under his breath he muttered: 
“ The damned fools ! I could keep them blithering 
here till morning ! ” 

“ We might find other means to get the right of it 
out of you,” said the man with the Winchester. I ’ve 
seen a bit of the Indians from whom you take your 
name, and I reckon some of their tricks would bring 
you to reason.” 

“What!” cried Apache Kid. “You’d threaten 
that, would you? You’d insult me— coming out 
with a hog like that to hold me up, too,” and he 
pointed at the man with the revolver. 

“ Come ! Come I ” cried he of the Winchester, 
“easy wi’ that hand. If you don’t come to a de- 


92 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


cision before I count three, you’re a dead man. 
I ’ll run chances on finding the Lost Cabin Mine 
myself. Come now, what are you going to do? 
One ” 

“ Excuse me interrupting,” said Apache Kid, “ but 
are you aware that the gentleman you have brought 
with you there is an incompetent?” 

“Haow?” said the Winchester man. **What you 
mean? ” 

‘‘ That ! ” said Apache Kid, and, leaping back and 
wheeling his horse between the Winchester and him- 
self, he had plucked forth his revolver and— But 
another crack — the crack of a rifle — rang out in the 
forest. I am not certain which was first, but there, 
before my eyes, the two men, who had a moment 
earlier stood exulting over us, sank to the earth, he 
with the revolver falling second, so that as he sagged 
down I heard the breath of life, one might have 
thought, belch out of him. It was really the gasp, I 
suppose, when the bullet struck him, but it was the 
most helpless sound I ever heard in my life — some- 
thing like the quack of a duck. Sorry am I that ever 
I heard that sound, for it, I believe, more than the 
occurrence of that night itself, seemed to sadden me, 
give me a drearier outlook on life. I wonder if I 
express myself clearly? I wonder if you understand 
what I felt in my heart at that sound ? Had he died 
with a scream, I think I should have been less haunted 
by his end. 


FIRST BLOOD 


93 

If our horses shied at the smell of men whom they 
could not see, they were evidently well enough accus- 
tomed to the snap of firearms, for beyond a quick 
snort they paid no heed. As for me, I found then 
that I had been a deal more upset by this meeting 
than I had permitted myself to believe; and my 
nerves must have been terribly strung, for no sooner 
had they fallen than I shuddered throughout my 
body, so that I must have looked like one suffering 
from St. Vitus dance. 

Apache Kid looked at me with a queer, pained 
expression on his face, scrutinising me keenly and 
quickly and then looking away. And into the waver- 
ing light of the burning stumps came Donoghue, with 
his rifle lying in the crook of his arm, right up to us 
and began speaking. No, I cannot call it speaking. 
There was no word intelligible. His eyes were the 
eyes of a sober man, but when he spoke to us not a 
word could we distinguish, and he seemed aware of 
that himself, spluttering painfully and putting his 
hand to his mouth now and again, as with a sort of 
anger at himself and his condition. Then suddenly, 
as though remembering something, away he went 
through the timber the way he had come. 

“ Fancy being killed by that ! ” said Apache Kid, 
wetting his lips with his tongue, and a sick look on 
his face. 

** What *s wrong with him? ” said I. 

“ Drunk,*' said he, and never a word more. But he 


94 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

followed Donoghue, to where stood a horse, the reins 
hitched to a tree. 

“ That *s a tough looking mount he ’s got,” said 
Apache Kid, and then, like an afterthought : “ Try to 
forget about those two fellows lying there,” he added 
to me. 

I looked at him in something of an emotion very 
nigh horror. 

** Have they to lie there till — till they are found ? ” 

“Yes,” said he, “by the wolves to-night — if the 
light of the stumps does n’t keep them off. Failing 
that, to-morrow — by the buzzards.” 

I looked round then, scarcely aware of the move- 
ment, and there, between the trees, I saw the clearing 
with the smouldering, twinkling stumps. 

The leader of these two lay with his back and his 
heels and the broad soles of his feet toward me ; but 
the other, “ the hog from Ontario,” lay looking after us, 
with his dead eyes and his face lighting and shadowing, 
lighting up and shadowing pitifully in that ghastly glow. 

I turned round no more. I breathed in relief 
when we came clear of the forest into the open, sandy 
ground ; but when I saw the stars thick in the sky, 
Orion, Cassiopeia, and Ursa Major, the tears welled 
in my eyes ; they seemed so far from the terrors of 
that place. 

“ I ’ll wait till you mount,” said Apache Kid, hold- 
ing my horse’s head while I gathered the reins. 

When I raised my foot to the stirrup the beast 


FIRST BLOOD 95 

swerved ; but at the third try I got in my foot, and 
with a spring gained the high saddle. 

Donoghue’s mount was walking sedately enough, 
but all the lean body of it had an evil look. Apache 
stood to watch his partner mount to the saddle. 
Donoghue flung the reins over the horse’s neck and 
came to its left. He seemed to remember its na- 
ture, despite his condition then, for he ran his hand 
over the saddle and gave a tug to the cloth to see 
that it was firm. Then with a quick jerk, before 
the horse was well aware, he had yanked the cinch 
up another hole or two. At this, taken by surprise, 
the beast put its ears back and hung its head and 
its tail between its legs. Donoghue pulled his hat 
down on his head, caught the check-rein with his 
left and clapped his right hand to the high, round 
pommel. There was a moment’s pause; he cast a 
quick glance to the horse’s head ; thrust his foot into 
the huge stirrup, and with a grunt and a mighty 
swing was into the saddle. And then the beast 
gathered itself together and with an angry squeal 
leapt from the ground. Half a dozen times it went 
up and down, as you have perhaps seen a cat or a 
ferret do — with stiff legs and humped back. But 
Donoghue seemed part of the heavy, creaking sad- 
dle, and after these lurchings and another half-dozen 
wheelings the brute calmed. Apache Kid swung 
himself up to his horse and we struck on to the stage 
road in the light of the stars. 


96 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

And just then there came a clinking of horse’s 
hoofs to our ears and there, on the road coming up 
from Camp Kettle, and bound toward Baker City, 
was an old, grey-bearded man leading a pack-horse 
and spluttering and coughing as he trudged ahead in 
the dust. 

“ It ’s a good night, gentlemen, ” he said, stopping 
and eyeing us — Donoghue across the road, in the 
lead, and already a few paces up the hillside, Apache 
Kid with the led horse, I blocking his passage way. 

** Yes ; it ’s a fair night,” said Apache Kid, civilly 
enough, but I thought him vexed at this encounter. 

“ It ’s a cough I take at times, ” said the old man, 
wheezing again. “ I ’m getting up in years. Yes, 
you ’re better to camp out in the hills instead of going 
into Camp Kettle to-night I ’ve seen some camps 
in my day — I’m gettin’ an old man. No ; I could n’t 
stop in that place to-night.” 

His pack-horse stood meekly behind him, laden 
up with blankets, pans, picks, and the inevitable 
Winchester. 

'‘Yes, siree, you ’re better in the hills, a fine starry 
night o’ summer, instead of down there. It ’s a 
cough I have, ” he wheezed. “ I ’m gettin’ an old 
man. Any startling news to relate ? ” 

" Nothing startling, ” said Apache Kid. 

“What you think o’ the rush to Spokane way? 
Anything in it, think you ? ” said the old man in his 
slow, weary voice. 


FIRST BLOOD 


97 


'‘O, I think ” began Apache Kid, but the old 

man seemed to forget he had put a question. 

“What you think o’ this part o’ the country?” he 
asked, and then abruptly, without evidently desiring 
an answer: “Well, well. I’ll give you good night. 
I ’ll keep goin’ on, till I get a good camp place — 
maybe all night. I don’t like Camp Kettle to-night,” 
and grumbling something about being an old man 
now, he plodded on, his pack-horse waking up at the 
jerk on the rein and following behind. 

“ Aye, ” sighed Apache Kid to me, “ no wonder 
they say * as crazy as a prospector.’ It ’s the hills 
that do it. The hills and the loneliness and all that,” 
he said with a wave of his hand in the starshine. 
Then suddenly he spurred forward his horse upon 
Donoghue and in a low, vehement voice : “ Stop that, 
Donoghue ! ” he said. “ What on earth are you 
wanting to do? 

For Donoghue was glaring after the weary old 
prospector and dragging his Winchester from the 
sling at his saddle. He managed to splutter out the 
word “ blab ” as he pointed after the man and then 
pulled again at the Winchester which he found diffi- 
cult to get free. But Apache Kid smote Donoghue’s 
horse upon the flank and pressed him forward and so 
we left the road and began breasting the hill with the 
stars, brilliant and seeming larger to me than ever 
they seemed seen through the atmosphere of the old 
country, shining down on us out of a cloudless sky. 

7 


98 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

Perhaps it had been better had Donoghue got his 
rifle free, callous though it may seem to say so. For 
other lives might have been spared and these moun- 
tains, into the foothills of which we now plunged, have 
not been assoiled with the blood of many had that 
one solitary old prospector ceased his weary seekings 
and his journeyings there, as Donoghue intended. 


CHAPTER X 

In the Enemy s Camp 

a little fold of the hills we made our 
camp, somewhere about two in the 
morning, I should think. 

Donoghue rolled off his horse at a 
word from Apache Kid, and stood 
yawning and grunting, but Apache Kid had his part- 
ner’s blankets undone in a twinkling and bade him lie 
down and go to sleep. Then he hobbled the horses 
and, sitting down on his own blanket-roll, which he 
had not undone: 

“ Could you eat anything? ” said he. 

“ Eat ! ” I ejaculated. 

“ Well, sleep, then? ” he said. 

“ Aye, I could sleep,” said I. ** I should like to 
sleep never to awaken.” 

“ As bad as that? ” said he. 

** Look here,” said I. I Ve just been thinking 
that I ” and I stopped. 

Something was creeping stealthily along the ridge 
of the cup in which we sat, and the horses were all 
snorting, drowning the sound of Donoghue’s deep 
breathing. 



100 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


“ It 's only a coyote/^ said Apache Kid, looking 
up in the direction of my gaze. “You look tired, 
my boy,” he added in a kindlier voice. “ Well, if 
these fellows are going to sit round us, I suppose 
I 'd better make a fire; but I did n’t want to. We '11 
make a small one. You know what the Indians say: 

‘ Indian make small fire and lie close ; white man 
make big fire and lie heap way off. White man dam 
fool ! ’ And there is some sense in it. We don’t want 
to light a beacon to-night, anyway.” 

So saying, he rose and cried “ Shoo ! ” to the 
skulking brutes that went round and round our 
hollow, showing lean and long against the sky. 

I watched him going dim and shadowy along the 
hill- front, where contorted bushes waved their arms 
now and then in the night wind. He took a small 
axe with him, from the pouch of his saddle, and I 
heard the clear “ ping ” of it now and then after he 
himself was one with the bushes. And there I sat 
with my weary thoughts beside the snoring man and 
the horses huddling close behind me, as though for 
my company, and the prowl, prowl of the coyotes 
round and round me. Then suddenly these latter 
scattered again and Apache Kid returned, like a 
walking tree beside the pale sky, and made up a 
fire and besought me to lie down, which I had no 
sooner done than I fell asleep, for I was very 
weary. 

Now and then I woke and heard far-off cries, — of 


IN THE ENEUrS CAMP loi 

wildcats, I suppose, — and saw the stars twinkling in 
the heavens and the little parcel of fire flickering at 
my feet; but the glow of Apache Kid’s cigarette 
reassured me each time, and though once I thought 
of asking him if he himself did not want to sleep, so 
heavy with sleep was I that I sank again into oblivion 
ere the thought was fairly formed. 

So it was morning at last, when I came again 
broad awake, and Apache Kid was sitting over the 
fire with the frying-pan in hand. Indeed, the first 
thing I saw on waking was the flip he gave to the 
pan that sent the pancake — or flapjack, as it is 
called — twirling in the air. And as he caught it 
neatly on the undone side and put the pan again 
on the blaze (that the morning sunlight made a 
feeble yellow) I gathered that he was catechising 
Donoghue, who sat opposite him staring at him very 
hard across the fire. 

‘‘ No,” Larry was saying, “ I got a horse all right, 
and gave out at the stable that I was going to the 
Placer Camp, and struck south right enough and 
went into the bit where we were to meet and sat 
there waiting you, and not a soul came nigh hand 
all the derned time.” 

How do you know, when you acknowledge you 
were as drunk as drunk?” 

How do I know?” said Donoghue. “Why, 
drunk or sober, I never lose anything more than 
my speech.” 


102 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


“ True,” said Apache. But you ’re a disgusting 

sight when you are trying to talk and ” 

Well, well ; let that drop,” said Donoghue. “ I 
was sober enough to let the wind out of that fellow 
that held up you two.” 

“ Thanks to you,” said Apache Kid. Which 
reminds me that there may be others on the track 
of us; though how these fellows followed so quick 
I ” 

“ O, pshaw ! ” said Donoghue. You must have 
come away careless from Baker City. I saw the 
stage cornin’ in from where I was layin’, and I saw 
them two fellows cornin’ up half an hour after.” 

“ O ! ” said Apache Kid, paying no heed to the 
charge of a careless departure. “ And anybody else 
suspicious-looking? ” 

Donoghue shook his head. But the meal was now 
ready, and I do not know when I enjoyed a meal as 
I did that flapjack and the bacon and the big canful 
of tea made with water from a creek half a mile along 
the hill, as Apache Kid told me, so that I knew he 
had been busy before I awoke. I felt a little easier 
at the heart now than on the night before, and less 
inclined to renounce my agreement and return. 
But suddenly, as we were saddling up again, the 
thought of those dead men came into my head; 
and though of a certainty they had been evil men, 
yet the thought that these two with me had taken 
human lives gave me a “ grew,” as the Scots say. 


IN THE ENEMrS CAMP 103 

I turned about and looked at my companions. 

“Would you be annoyed if I suggested turning 
back? ” I asked, coming right to the point. 

It was Donoghue who answered. 

“ Guess we would n’t be annoyed ; but you would n’t 
get leave, you dirty turncoat.” 

But Apache turned wrathfully on him. 

“ Turncoat? ” he cried. “ Do you think he wants 
to go down and give us away ? If you do, you ’re 
off the scent entirely. It ’s the thought of those dead 
men that has sickened him of coming.” 

“ O, pshaw ! ” cried Donoghue, grinning. “ Sorry 
I spoke, Francis. There’s my fist; shake. Never 
mind the dead men.” 

We “ shook,” but I have to say that I did not rel- 
ish the feel of that hand, somehow. He was a man, 
this, who lived in a different world from mine. 

“ Why, sure you can go back, if you like,” said 
he. And then suddenly he caught himself up and 
said: “No, no, for the love of God don’t do that! 
Apache Kid and me don’t do with being alone in the 
mountains.” 

On one point at least this man felt deeply, it would 
appear. 

“ Well,” said Apache Kid to me. “ That ’s a better 
tone of Donoghue’s. To beseech a favour is always 
better than to threaten or to attempt coercion and I 
must add my voice to his and ask you to come on 
with us. Though personally,” he added, “had I once 


104 "THE LOST CABIN MINE 


made a compact with anyone, I would carry it through 
to the bitter end.” 

“ I should never have suggested this,” said I, feel- 
ing reproved. ‘‘ I will not mention it again.” 

This was the end of my uncertainty, and we rode 
on through the June day till we came to the north 
part of the Kettle River, gurgling and bubbling and 
moving in itself with sucking, oily whirlpools, and 
travelled beside it a little way and then left it at the 
bend where it seethed black and turbid with a sound 
like a herd bellowing. 

The creek we came to at noon was kindlier, with a 
song in place of a cry; swift flowing it was, so that it 
nearly took our horses from their feet as we crossed 
it, or the nigher half of it, rather (for we camped on 
an islet in the midst of it and the second crossing was 
shallower and easy), but, though swift as the Kettle, it 
made one lightsome instead of despondent to see. 
The sun shone down into its tessellated bed, all the 
pebbles gleaming. The rippling surface sparkled and 
near the islet was dappled over with the thin shadows 
of the birches that stood there balancing and sway- 
ing. And scarcely had we begun our meal when we 
heard a clatter midst the pebbles and a splashing in 
the water, and there came an old Indian woman on a 
tall horse, with a white star on its forehead, and pots 
and kettles hanging on either side of it. It came up 
with dripping belly out of the creek and went slap- 
ping past us in the sand and the old dame’s slit 


IN THE ENEMY'S CAMP 105 

of a mouth widened and her eyes brightened on 
us under the glorious kerchief she wore about her 
head. 

How do,” said my companion, and she nodded to 
us, passed on, and the babe slung on her back stared 
at us with wide eyes. 

For an hour after that they came in twos and 
threes, men and women, the young folk laughing and 
chatting among themselves, giving the lie again to all 
tales of an Indian never smiling. It was a great sight 
to me and I can never forget that islet in the Kettle 
River. Not one of the people stopped to talk. The 
men and the old women gave us How do ” and drew 
themselves up erect in their saddles. The younger 
women smiled, showing white teeth to us in a quick 
flash and then looking away. 

Apache Kid was radiant. “ They ’re a fine people, 
these,” said he. 

“ Yes,” said Donoghue, ** when you ’ve got a gun 
and keep them at a distance.” 

“ Nonsense,” cried Apache Kid. I ’ve lived among 
them and I know.” 

“Yes, lived among ’em to buy ’em whisky, I guess, 
so as they could get round about the law.” 

“ No,” said Apache Kid, “ never bought them a 
single bottle all the time I was with them.” 

I could see that Donoghue believed his partner, but 
I could see too that he could not comprehend this 
story of living with the Indians for no obvious reason. 


io6 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


He looked at Apache Kid as men look on one 
they cannot understand, but spoke no further 
word. 

After we left that camp, as we struck away across 
the valley toward the far-off range, we saw these folk 
still on the other mountainside and caught the occa- 
sional flash of the sunlight on a disk, maybe, or on a 
mirror, or the polished heel of a rifle swinging by the 
saddle; and then we lost sight of them among the 
farther woods. 

That picturesque sight did a deal to lighten my 
heart. Apache Kid, too, was mightily refreshed the 
rest of the afternoon, and spun many an Indian yarn 
which Donoghue heard without any suggestion of 
disbelief. But it was no picnic excursion we were 
out upon. We had come into the hollow of the hills. 
We were indeed at the end of the foothills, and across 
the valley before us the mountains rose sheer, as 
though shutting us into this vale. To right, the 
east, was a wooded hill, parallel with which we now 
rode ; and to left cliffs climbed upwards with shelving 
places here and there on their front, very rugged and 
savage. 

Donoghue nodded in the direction of a knoll ahead 
of us, and said : Shall we camp at the old spot ? 
It’s gettin’ nigh sundown; anyway, I guess we’ve 
done our forty to fifty mile already.” 

Yes,” said Apache Kid. It ’s a good spot.” 

*^You ’ve been here before?” I inquired. 


IN THE ENEUrS CAMP 107 

My two companions looked in each other’s eyes 
with a meaning glance. 

“Yes, we’ve been here before,” said Donoghue, 
and I had the idea that there was something behind 
this. So there was; but I was not to hear it — 
then. 

Suddenly we all three turned about at the one in- 
stant for a far-off “ Yah-ah-ah-ah ! ” came to us. 

There, behind us, we saw two riders, and they 
were posting along in our track at great speed. 

We reined up and watched them, Apache Kid 
drawing his Winchester across his saddle pommel, 
and Donoghue following suit, I, for my part, slacken- 
ing my revolver in the holster. 

Nearer they came, bending forward their heads to 
the wind of their passage and the dust drifting behind 
them in two spiral clouds. Then I saw that one was 
a white man with a great, fluttering beard ; the other 
an Indian, or half-breed. And just at the moment 
that I recognised the bearded man Apache Kid cried 
out : “ Why ! It ’s the proprietor of the Half-Way-to- 
Kettle House.” 

“ What in hell do he want up here ? ” said Don- 
oghue. “ Lead ? ” 

They came down on us in the approved western 
fashion, with a swirl and a rush, stopping short with 
a jerk and the horses’ sides going like bellows. 

“ Good day, gentlemen,” said the man of the beard. 
“ Are you gentlemen aware that there ’s no less than 


io8 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


seven gentlemen followin’ you up, thirstin’ for your 
money or your life-blood or something ? ” 

Well, sir,” said Apache Kid, “ it does not surprise 
me to hear of it.” 

So,” said the shaggy-bearded, whose name, by 
the way, was J. D. Pinkerton, for all who passed by 
to read above his hostel — “ Half-Way-Rest Hotel — 
Prop. : J. D. Pinkerton,” so ran the legend there. 

** So,” he repeated again, and again and took the 
tangle from his beard. “ Well, I reckon from what I 
saw of two of you gentlemen already that you don’t 
jest need to be spoon-fed and put in your little cot at 
by-by time, but — well, you see my daughter — she 
has a way o’ scarin’ me when she puts it on. And 
she says : * Dad,’ she says, * if you don’t go and warn 
them, their blood will be on your head should any- 
thing happen to them.’ Now, I don’t want no blood 
on my head, gentlemen. And then she says : * Well, 
if you don’t go, I ’ll jest have to go myself with Charlie 
— this is Charlie — Charlie, gentlemen — a smart boy, 
a good boy, great hand at tracking stolen stock and 
the like employ. An old prospector had seen you, 
and by good luck he stopped us, and by better luck 
I was polite for once and listened to his chin-chin, 
and so we heard where you had got off the waggon 
road. After that it was all child’s play to Charlie 
here.” 

We owe you our thanks, sir,” said Apache, and 
then the moodiness went from his face, and he said in 


IN THE ENEUrS CAMP 109 

a cheerful tone : ** But they may never find out what 
way we Ve gone. You see it was a mere chance, 
your meeting that prospector and being told of the 
point at which we left the road.” 

“ That ’s so,” said Mr. Pinkerton ; “ but still there 's 
chances, you know.” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Apache Kid, and again : We owe 
you our thanks,” said he. 

Not you, not you ! ” said Mr. Pinkerton. 

“ But what sort of outfit is this that you have come 
to post us up about ?” 

“ Why, just as dirty a set of greazers as ever stole 
stock, and they must sit there talkin’ away about you 
in the dining-room after they had told my daughter 
they was through with their dinner; and my cook 
heard ’em from his pantry — told my lass — she told 
me — I’m tellin’ you — there you have the whole 
thing, — how they ’re to dog you up and wait till you 
get to your Lost Cabin. And now we ’re here. But 
I want to let you know — for I ’m a proud man and 
would n’t like any suspicions, though they might be 
nat’ral enough for you to harbour — want just to let 
you know that as for what you ’re after — this yere 
Lost Cabin, — I don’t give that for it,” and he snapped 
his fingers. “ I ’ve got all a rational man wants. But 
we ’ll chip in with you, if you think of waiting on a 
bit to see if you 're followed.” 

Sir,” said Apache Kid, “ I have to thank you 
again. I have to thank you, and your daughter 


no 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


through you, and your cook ; but I must beg of you 
to get back.” 

Pshaw ! ” cried Pinkerton. “ What 's that for ? ” 

“Well — this may be a bloody business, sir, if we 
are followed, and it would be the saddest thing 

imaginable ” he broke off and asked abruptly : 

“ Pardon the question, sir, but is Mrs. Pinkerton alive ? ” 

“My good wife is in her resting grave in Old 
Kentucky,” said Pinkerton in a new voice. 

“That settles it, sir,” said Apache Kid. “ It would 
be a sad thing to think of that fine girl down at the 
Half-Way House as an orphan. ” 

Pinkerton frowned. 

“ When you put it that way,” said he, “ you take 
all the fight out of J. D.” 

“ Then I must even beg you to be gone, sir, before 
there is any chance of pursuit by these men,” said 
Apache Kid. “ If we come back alive, we may all 
call and thank you again, and Miss Pinkerton too. I 
beg of you to go and take care of meeting them on 
the way.” 

“ Well, boys, luck to you all, then,” and round he 
wheeled and away with a swirl of leather while the 
half-breed laid the quirt, that swung at his wrist, to 
his lean pony’s flanks and, with a nod to us, shot after 
Mr. Pinkerton. 

We watched them till they had almost crested the 
rise and there suddenly they stopped, wheeled, and 
next moment had dismounted. 


IN THE ENEUrS CAMP 


III 


‘‘What’s wrong?” said Donoghue. “Something 
wrong there.” 

“ It looks as if the chance Pinkerton spoke of was 
against us after all,” said Apache Kid, quietly. 

We were not left long in doubt, for a puff of 
smoke rose near the backbone of the rise and a flash 
of a rifle and then seven mounted men swept down 
on these two. 

We saw the half-breed tug at his horse’s head ; saw 
the brute sink down to its knees, saw the half-breed 
fling himself on his belly behind it, and then his rifle 
flashed. 

The seven riders spread out as they charged down 
on the two and at the flash of the rifle we saw one of 
them fall from the saddle and his horse rear and 
wheel, then spin round and dash madly across the 
valley, dragging the fallen rider by a stirrup for quite 
a way, with a hideous bumping and rebounding. 

But it was on the two dismounted men on the hill- 
front that my attention was concentrated, and round 
them the remaining six of their assailants were now 
circling. 

“ Come on ! ” cried Apache Kid. 

He dropped the reins of our pack-horse to the 
ground and remarked : “ She ’ll not go far with the 
rein like that and the pack on her.” 

Next moment we three were tituping along the 
valley in the direction of the two held-up men. 

Apache Kid was a little ahead of me, Donoghue a 


II2 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


length behind, but Donoghue’s mount would not 
suffer us to go in that order long. With a snort it 
bore Donoghue abreast of me and I clapped my 
heels to the flanks of my beast. Next moment we 
were all in line, with the wind whistling in our ears. 
The six men who seemed to be parleying with 
Pinkerton and the half-breed, suddenly catching 
sight of us in our charge, I suppose, wheeled about 
and went at a wild gallop, with dirt flying from their 
horses’ hoofs, slanting across the hill. 

And then I had an exhibition of Donoghue’s 
madness. 

He cried out an oath, the most terrible I ever 
heard, and, “ Come on, boys,” he shouted to us. 

“Yes, let’s settle it to-day,” came Apache’s voice. 

“ Right now ! ” cried Donoghue, and away we 
went after the fugitives. 

I saw the reason for this action at once ; for to put 
an end to these men now would be the only sure way 
to make certain of an undisputed tenancy of the Lost 
Cabin. Indeed, their very flight in itself was enough 
to suggest not so much that they were afraid of us 
(for Pinkerton had given them the name of fearless 
scoundrels) as that they did not want an encounter 
yet — that their time had not yet come. But for 
Pinkerton, they might have followed up quietly the 
whole way to our goal. Thanks to him, we knew of 
them following. This, though not their tiine to fight, 
was our time. 


IN THE ENEUrS CAMP 




Suddenly I saw Donoghue, who was ahead, rear 
his horse clean back on to its haunches and next 
moment he was down on a knee beside it, and, just as 
I came level with him, his rifle spoke and in a voice 
scarcely human he cried, '' Got ’im ! Got 'im ! The 
son of a dog ! ” 

And sure enough, there was a riderless horse 
among the six and a man all asprawl in the sunshine 
before us. 

But at that the flying men wheeled together and 
all five of them were on their feet before Apache 
Kid and I could draw rein. I heard a rifle snap 
again behind me, whether Apache Kid’s or Dono- 
ghue’s I did not know, and then, thought I, “ If I 
stop here, I ’m done for ; I Ve got to keep going.” 

The same thought must have been in Apache Kid’s 
mind for I heard the quick patter of his pony as it 
came level with me. He passed me and he and I 
— I now a length behind him — came level with the 
five men clustered there behind their horses and the 
horse of the fallen man, Apache crying to me : 

“ Try a flying shot at them.” 

He fired at that, and a yell rose in the group and 
I saw one man fall and then I up with my revolver 
and let fly at one of the fellows who was looking at 
me along his gun-barrel. 

And just at that moment it struck me, in the midst 
of all the fluttering excitement, that they let Apache 
Kid go by without a shot. But right on my shot my 
8 


1 14 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


horse went down — his foot in a badger hole — and 
though afterwards I found that I had slain the horse 
that the fellow who was aiming at me was using as a 
bastion, I knew nothing of that then — for I smashed 
forward on my head. 

The last thing I heard was the snort of pain that 
my horse gave, and the first thing, when I awakened, 
that I was aware of was that I was lying on my back 
looking up at the glaring sky, a great throbbing 
going on in my head. 

My hands were tied together behind my back and 
my ankles also trussed up in a similar manner. 

I was in the wrong camp. I had fallen somehow 
into the hands of our enemies. 


CHAPTER XI 



How It Was Dark in the Sunlight 

OU will hear persons speak of one 
who has been in a trance or swoon as 
“ returning to consciousness.” I re- 
member once of hearing someone 
objecting to the phrase, saying that 
a person was either conscious or unconscious, and to 
speak of one returning to consciousness as though 
there was a middle state, he argued, was erroneous ; 
but I discovered for myself, that day, the full mean- 
ing of the phrase; for first it was a sound that I 
heard, a sound as of rustling wings, and this presently 
changed and became the sound of whispering as of 
a whole chamber full of furtive, stealthy persons talk- 
ing under the breath. Then I was aware of the sun- 
light in my face and at the same moment the number 
of voices dwindled and the power of them increased. 
I opened my eyes and found myself lying in a mighty 
uncomfortable and strained position upon a slab of 
rock, so hot with the sun that my hands, which were 
behind my back and under me as I lay, were abso- 
lutely scorched. I made to withdraw them and then 
found they were fast tied together. 



ii6 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

As for the voices I heard, they were only two in 
number, I think. 

‘‘ He ’s all right; I see his eyes flickerin’,” said one, 
and there, bending over me, was a face as full of evil 
as ever I desired to see. 

I have seen a cast of an eye that almost seemed to 
give a certain quaint charm to a face; but the cast 
in these eyes that scrutinised me now was of the 
most diabolic. 

My head was beating and thumping like a ship- 
yard with all its riveters, and the pain between my 
eyes was well-nigh unbearable. 

With puckering eyebrows I scrutinised my captor, 
and as I did so he cried out : “ Here you are now, 
Farrell.” 

“ Right ! ” came a voice from behind, and the man 
called Farrell shuffled down on us, a big-boned, heavy- 
browed man with a three days’ stubble on his face 
which was of a blue colour around the upper lip and 
on the jaws — and over his right cheek-bone there 
was an ugly scar of a dirty white showing there 
amidst the sun-tan. 

I thought at first it was a whip he carried in his 
hand, but suddenly what I took for the thong of the 
whip wriggled as of its own accord, and addressing 
himself to it, he said: “None o’ your wrigglin’, Mr. 
Rattler, or I ’ll give you one flick that ’ll crack your 
backbone.” 

Then I saw that what he carried was a stick, with 


DARK IN THE SUNLIGHT 117 

a short string at the end of it and in the end of that 
string was a noose, taut around a rattlesnake’s tail, 
just above the knob of the rattle. 

** See what I ’ve bin fishin’ for you ? ” he said, and 
laughed in an ugly way. 

He of the terrible eyes caught me roughly by the 
shoulders and drew me to a sitting posture, so that 
I saw where we were — on a rock-strewn ledge of 
some cliffs, which I supposed to be those we had 
seen on our left from the valley. But owing to the 
rise of the ledge toward the front I could not see 
the lower land, only the far, opposing cliffs, blue and 
white and yellow, with the fringe of trees a-top. And 
lying on their bellies at the verge of the shelf on 
which we were, I then saw two other men, with their 
rifles beside them, lying like scouts, gazing down 
intently on the valley. 

I had no thought then as to how we came there,' 
where my friends were, nor for any other matter save 
my own present peril. For before I was well aware, 
and while yet too feeble to offer any resistance, too 
dazed to make any protest, I was flung down upon 
my face in the sand, and then, “ Give me a hand here, 
you two,” said Farrell, and the scouts turned and rose, 
and, one of them clutching me by the back of the 
neck and thrusting my face down into the sand, I felt 
a weight gradually crushing upon my back and legs. 

‘‘ That ’s him ! ” said one, and then my neck was 
freed. 


ii8 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


The weight upon my buttocks and legs was nothing 
else than a great, flat slab of rock. I thought, though 
it had been lowered gently enough on me, that the 
heaviness of it would alone be sufficient to crush my 
bones. Certainly to move below the waist was quite 
out of the question. 

All this I suffered in a dumb, half-here, half-away 
fashion, my head hammering and my tongue parched 
in my mouth like a piece of dry wood. But when these 
four laughed brutally among themselves and began a 
series of remarks such as : “ See and don’t give it an 
inch too short,” or, See that the string 's taut or we ’ll 
not get what we want,” I came more to my senses and 
wondered what was to befall me. Then, for the first 
time, I was addressed directly by Farrell. 

“ Well, kid,” he said, you ’re in a tight corner — 
you hear me? 

‘‘I hear you,” said I, speaking with difficulty, so 
dry was my throat. 

Well,” said he, ‘‘ you can get out of this fix right 
off by telling us where the Lost Cabin Mine lies. And 
that ’s business right off, with no delay.” 

I can never do that,” said I, for I don’t know 
myself.” 

There was a chorus of unbelieving grunts and 
then : All right,” snapped the voice. “ Fact is, we 
have n’t much inclination to loiter here. You ’ve 
taken a mighty while to come round, too, as it is — 
shove it in,” he broke off. 


DARK IN THE SUNLIGHT iig 


But the last words were not for me. 

One of the others stepped before me, his foot graz- 
ing my head, and I heard him say, There ? ” 

“No,” said another. “That’s over close — yes, 
there. That’s the spot.” 

And then they all stepped back from me, and I, 
lying with my chin in the dust, saw what the man 
had been about ; for directly before me was the point 
of the stick, thrust into the ground, with the snake 
noosed by the tail to it. 

No sooner had the man who fixed it in leaped back 
(and he did so very smartly, while the others laughed 
at him and caused him to rip out a hideous oath) 
than the reptile coiled fiercely up the stick ; but the 
hand was gone from the end of it, and down it 
slithered again. 

Then it saw me with its beady eyes, rattled fiercely, 
again coiled, and — I closed my eyes and drew in my 
head to the shoulders and wriggled as far to the side 
as I could. 

But something smote me on the chin. I felt my 
heart in my throat, and thought I to myself, “ I am a 
dead man now ” ; but before I opened my eyes again 
I heard another rattle, opened my eyes in quick 
horror, saw the second leap of the snake toward me, 
and shrivelled backward again. 

“ Close shave ! ” cried one of my tormentors ; but 
this time, after the tap on my chin I felt something 
moist trickle down upon the point of it, and I be- 


120 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


thought me that I was close enough to get the poison 
that it spat, but not close enough to allow of its fangs 
reaching me. 

But if this stuff should reach my eye it might be 
fatal,” thought I, heedless now of headache or weari- 
ness, or anything but the terrible present. My mouth, 
too, I kept tight closed, as you may guess. 

“ Will you tell us now, kid? ” cried Farrell. ** Will 
you spit it out now? ” 

Thought I to myself : I must die now for certain. 
I trust that even if I knew, I would not reveal this 
that they ask. But assuredly, to reveal it or to 
keep it secret is not mine to choose. I must even 
die.” 

It came into my head that soon the thin string 
would, at one of these leaps, cut clean through the 
snake’s tail, and then — Then it leapt again. 

** I do not know ! ” cried I. I cannot tell you 1 ” 

“ Then you can just lie there ! ” snapped one of 
the four, and went back to his place of outlook on the 
ledge. And the other, who had been watching the 
valley, came and stood by my shoulder, irritating 
the snake, by his presence, to fresh efforts. 

^‘You’re a fool,” he said. “Your partners have 
deserted you. They ’re off. There ain’t hide nor hair 
to be seen of them. If they ’d leave you in a lurch 
like this, you ’re a fool not to let us know the location. 
We’ll follow ’em up again and take vengeance on ’em 
for you — see? ” 


DARK IN THE SUNLIGHT 


I2I 


And just then, as though to refute his remarks as 
to the heedlessness of my partners, I heard a faint 
snap of a rifle, and the man with the squint, who 
had taken his turn on guard at the place this fellow 
had vacated, turned round and said he; “Boys, O 
boys, I ’m hit ! ” 

Something in the tone of his voice made me 
glance at him sharply, but with half an eye for the 
snake, as you may be sure, and my ears alert for 
its warning rattle. I was never more alert in my 
life than then, and, strange though it may seem, 
the predominating thought in my mind was, “ How 
sad, how very sad to leave this world, never to see 
the rich, rich blue of that sky again ! ” 

But, as I say, the tone of the man’s voice break- 
ing in on my thoughts and terrors was peculiar, 
and, with my head still as low in my shoulders as 
I could manage to hold it, I laid my cheek to the 
hot sand and looked at him. He had turned to the 
man who had been standing by me, but at sound 
of the shot had dropped to his knees. 

“Does it look bad?” said he, drawing his finger 
across his forehead, where was a tiny mark, and 
then holding out his hand and looking on it for 
traces of blood, raising up his face for inspection 
by the man beside me at the same time, and a 
question in his eyes, very much as you have seen 
a child, “Is my face clean, mother?” Yes, and 
with a very childish voice, too. 


122 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

‘‘It don’t look bad,” was the reply — and neither 
it did. 

But when he turned away again to the other 
sentry who lay further off, repeating his question 
to him in that simple voice, I saw the back of his 
head. And his brains were dribbling out behind 
upon his neck. A terrible weakness filled my heart. 
I heard him say, with no oath, as one might have 
expected, but in a soft voice ; “ Dear me ! ” and 
again, “ Dear me ! How very dark it is getting ! ” 

Which was an awful word to hear with the sun 
blazing right in his eyes out of the burnished, pal- 
pitating sky. And then he put it as a question 
and still with the note of astonishment : “ Dear me, 

is n’t that strange ? Is n’t it getting very ” and 

he sank forward on his face ; but what followed I 
do not know. In the terror of my own position 
I kept all my faculties alert; but at the sight of 
that man’s back and the bloody wound, and at the 
childish voice of him, the world seemed to wheel. 
A sickness came on me and I fainted away. 


CHAPTER XII 

I Am Held as a Hostage 

must have been more of a momen- 
tary squeamishness, that, rather than 
a fainting fit, I think; for I heard 
myself moan twice, was conscious of 
the moaning. There seemed some- 
thing pressing on my heart and forcing me to gasp 
for breath and relieve the tension on it. A sweat 
broke on me then, and after that I felt myself, as it 
were, swinging through space, and with another gasp 
and a great gulp of air the world spun back again 
and there I lay, the cold sweat standing on my brow, 
and the rattlesnake coiling afresh. 

“Why! What’s this move now?” I heard one 
of my captors cry. “ What ’s he doin’ with his rifle 
carried and waggling his hand in the air that ways ? ” 

“ Don’t you know what that is? That ’s the peace 
sign — flat of the hand held up, palm open and 
pushed forward wi’ that there kind o’ to-and-fro 
movement.” 

“ Peace sign be durned I If I was sure we could 
get the information out of this here kid laying be- 
hind us, I ’d put a bullet through his skull and let 




124 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


out his brains — front of his face or back of his 
neck like Cockeye there — all the same to me.” 

“ Reckon you ’d be safer not to do that.” 

** Think the kid here won’t speak, then?” 

‘*No; I don’t think he’ll speak. I’ve just been 
figurin’ that neither Apache Kid nor Larry might 
tell him. He ’s liable to be givin’ you straight 
goods and no lie when he says he don’t know the 
location.” 

“ Pity we did n’t drop Apache Kid’s hoss that 
time they charged down. We could ha’ got him, 
instead, that way. Reckon we need n’t have been 
so scared o’ killin’ Apache Kid himself without 
gettin’ the news. But say ! This won’t do. I don’t 
like the looks of this thing. They all are getting 
a move on ’em and edgin’ up this way, the whole 
three of ’em.” 

‘‘ Three of them,” thought I, with my eye on the 
rattler. “ That ’s one short. I wonder who has been 
killed or disabled.” 

Say ! Shout to him to stop. Tell him if he 
wants to pow-wow with us to come up alone.” 

‘‘ Yes, and leave his rifle down. You do the talkin’ 
now, Farrell.” 

** Right,” said Farrell, and then he shouted, Well, 
what do you want? ” 

** I want to come up and talk this out with you,” 
hailed a voice that I recognised for Apache Kid’s. 

** He can’t come up here,” said Farrell. ** We 


I AM HELD AS A HOSTAGE 125 


don’t want 'em to know that we ’re only a threesome 
now, same as ’em.” 

“ I ’ll tell you what to do,” said one of them, with 
the voice of a man who has been visited by a sudden 
inspiration. 

“ Stop there a minute ! ” cried Farrell, and then 
turning to the speaker he said sharply : “ Spit it out 
then, Pete ; what ’s your notion ? ” 

“ Loosen the kid there,” said Pete, ** and set him 
on the front here and hold your gat to his head while 
we hear what they ’ve got to palaver.” 

Hum ! ” mused Farrell. “ Kind o’ hostage notion? 
Heh ? Well, there ’s something in that,” and he stood 
upright fearlessly and held his hand aloft, the palm 
facing away to those in the valley. 

“ You can come up the length o’ that there white 
rock,” he cried, and then to his companions : “ See ! 
Lend a hand here.” 

The snake had coiled again. I cannot guess how 
often it had sprung at me ; I do not know. All that 
I know is that at every fresh rattle I crouched my 
head into my shoulders and gasped to myself the one 
word God ” ; for we all, I believe, no matter what 
manner of lives we have led, at the last moment 
give a cry to the Unknown, in our hearts, if not with 
our lips. And every leap of the snake I was pre- 
pared to find the one that was to make an end of my 
acquaintance with the sunlight and with the sweet 
airs that blow about the world. 


126 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

But that torment was over now, for with one swift 
drop of his rifle-butt Farrell cut the head clean from 
the hideous long body, and then lent the other two 
men a hand to roll the great stone from off my 
aching limbs. 

Stand up, you son of a whelp,” he said, and 
spurned me with his boot. 

After the terror of the snake there seemed little 
now that I need heed. 

‘‘ It ’s easier said than done ! ” I cried, angry at his 
words. “ I ’m like a block of stone from my waist 
down.” 

“ I guess that ’s right. He must be feeling that 
way,” said one of the others, with a touch of com- 
miseration in his voice. 

That was the first sign of any heart that I had 
discovered in the ruffians. 

Oh, you guess it 's right, do you, Dan? ” sneered 
Farrell. Well, lend a hand and haul him here to 
the front of this ledge.” 

Next moment it was as if a thousand red-hot 
needles were being run into my stiff, trailing legs, for 
they caught me up by my arms and drew me like a 
sack to the front of the cliff. 

And then I saw the whole plateau below us. 
Apache Kid was half-way up the rise, among the 
long wire-grass at the verge of the cliffs; further 
down, leaning upon a rock, his shoulders and head 
visible, was Larry Donoghue. The third man that 


I AM HELD AS A HOSTAGE 127 

had been spoken of I could not see and searched the 
hillside in vain for; but when Farrell stood upright 
beside me and waved his hand I saw the half-breed, 
Charlie, who had come after us with Mr. Pinkerton, 
rise behind a flat rock and lounge across it, looking 
up on us with his broad sombrero pushed back on 
his head. 

Mr. Pinkerton, I supposed, had been prevailed 
upon to return out of our dispute, lest his life might 
be the forfeit for his interest in our behalf. But just 
as that explanation for his non-appearance had satis- 
fied me I saw, half across the plain, something mov- 
ing slowly — a pack of horses it seemed, and so clear 
was the air of that late afternoon that I recognised 
the form of the mounted man who guarded them, 
could almost, with a lengthy and concentrated sur- 
vey, descry his great beard like a bib upon his 
breast. 

** Well,” said Farrell, what do you want to pow- 
wow about? You see who we got here?” 

I see,” said Apache Kid, putting a foot upon the 
white stone. How are you, Francis? ” 

He 's all right,” said Farrell. '' But he *s a kind 
o’ prisoner o’ war just now.” 

Oh ! ” said Apache Kid. ‘‘ Well, I suppose if 
we want to get him back we ’ll have to buy him 
back?” 

“ That ’s what ! ” said Farrell, emphatically. 

Well,” said Apache Kid, we are giong on, — 


128 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


my friends and I, — and, as we have your horses now 
as well as our own, we thought we might perhaps be 
able to trade you them back for the lad.” 

And here, as you will be wondering how the horses 
had changed hands, I must tell you what I had after- 
wards explained to me. 

It seems that no sooner did I fall from my horse, 
at the time it put its foot in the badger hole (Apache 
Kid having gone past wildly, bringing down one man 
and one horse with his two running shots), than the 
four men, seeing my predicament, swung to their 
horses’ backs, opened out, and two of them passing, 
one on either side of me, swung from their saddles 
and yanked me up by my arms. 

Then full tilt they charged down the centre of 
the plain, intending evidently to make the rising 
knoll, of which I spoke, in the valley’s centre. And 
with me lying across Farrell’s saddle, they doubtless 
thought they had the key to the Lost Cabin. But 
Apache Kid wheeled his horse below, and Donoghue 
mounted again above, and from the hill-crest the 
half-breed spurred down, and so these three set after 
us, converging on each other as they came. 

But Farrell’s mount was falling behind with the 
burden of my extra weight, and they wheeled sharp 
to left and put their horses directly to the cliff-front. 
These ponies can do marvels in climbing, but they 
were over-jaded, having been very hard ridden, and 
right on the slope it was evident that not only the 


/ AM HELD AS A HOSTAGE 129 


half-breed, but Larry next, and Apache Kid follow- 
ing, were coming within effect range. It was Farrell 
who proposed their move then, considering that with 
me in their hands half the battle was won if only they 
had something in the way of a fort from which to 
stave off attack. So they flung off there, and, letting 
their horses go, up they came, dragging me along. 
But at the foot of the hill the others stopped, seeing 
how they had all the odds against them then and 
were so fully exposed. For it had not yet occurred 
to them, as indeed was very natural it should not, 
that the last thing these men wanted to do was to 
fire upon them. 

The intention of this little company of cut-throats 
had been to follow up softly in the rear, as near as 
possible without being seen by us, until we came to 
our journey’s end. What they had planned for us 
then it is, perhaps, needless to so much as hint. 
Little did they think that between them and us was 
Mr. Pinkerton, carrying the news of their possible 
pursuit. But when they saw him riding out of that 
plain, with the half-breed, the whole reason for his 
presence there was guessed by them, especially when 
they saw us halted within sight, the whole three of 
us turned round as though already watching for their 
approach. It was, undoubtedly, this upsetting of their 
plans that made them so short-tempered and snappish 
with one another. 

But by now I think even Farrell was convinced that 
9 


130 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

I was useless to them in so far as the giving of infor- 
mation went. And so I was now to be used as a 
hostage, — a sort of living breastwork before them, — 
as though they were to say : “ See ! if you fire, you 
kill your partner ! ” 

Farrell laughed loud at Apache Kid’s suggestion. 

“Why,” said he, “you talk as if you held the 
trumps; but you don’t. And for why? Why, be- 
cause we do.” And he spat in the sand and put a 
hand on either hip. “ We don’t need our horses, 
my mates and me. We ain’t in any hurry, and can 
set here as long as you like, — aye, or go away when 
we like, for that matter. What we want is that Lost 
Cabin Mine, and if you don’t tell us where it is, 
why, then we’ll let the wind out of your partner 
here.” 

“ And where do we come in?” yelled Donoghue, 
rearing up beside his bush. 

“Oh!” said Farrell, insolently, “ are you talking, 
too? Well, you don’t come in at all. There you 
are! That’s something for you to consider!” 

Donoghue broke out in a roar of laughter. 

“ Oh,” he said, “ the lad is nothing to us. You can 
do what you like with him.” 

Apache Kid turned upon him with a glance as of 
astonishment, and then again to Farrell he said; 

“ I ’ll give you the offer we came up with, and you 
and your two mates can consider it.” 

“ Three mates, you mean,” snapped Farrell, 


/ AM HELD AS A HOSTAGE 131 


** Na ! Na ! ’* cried Donoghue. ‘‘ When I look 
along a rifle I never err.” 

Oh, it was you did it?” cried Farrell. “Well, 
what’s your offer?” 

“ This is our offer,” said Apache Kid. “ You can 
come along with us. We are three, and so are you, 
and we can split the Lost Cabin between us.” 

Farrell turned to his two companions and looked a 
question at them. 

“ I guess you ’d better take that,” said the man 
Dan, “ for I reckon even if we did suggest killing 
this kid, it would n’t bring the facts out of ’em.” 

“ And anyhow,” said the other, him they called 
Pete, speaking low, but yet I caught the drift of his 
words, “ we can easy enough fix them all when we 
get there.” 

“ Come on ! ” said Apache Kid. “ How does our 
offer strike you? Are you aware that every hour we 
delay there may be others getting closer to the Lost 
Cabin Mine? ” 

“ Take the offer, man. Take the offer,” said Pete 
and Dan. 

“ All right,” cried Farrell. ** But mind, we ’re 
bad men, and this will have to be run on the 
square.” 

Donoghue laughed, and for a moment, as I looked 
at him, I saw an evil glitter in his eye. “ Oh, yes ! ” 
he ejaculated, “ we ’re all bad men here.” 

My three captors made no delay; but as for their 


132 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

fallen friend, they paid no heed to him. Only Farrell 
took the cartridges from his belt and ran his hands 
through the pockets, which contained a knife, a 
specimen of ore, two five-dollar bills, and a fifty- 
cent piece. 

For my part, I had the utmost difficulty in getting 
to my legs, and still more in descending the face of 
the precipice. I noticed, too, that Farrell kept 
close by my side, as though he thought still that 
it was as well to have me between Apache Kid 
and himself. 

Just as we came down the rise, there was Mr. 
Pinkerton leading the horses along toward us. 

“ Say ! cried Farrell. “ What about him ? ” And 
he pointed to Pinkerton. 

“ O ! ” said Apache Kid. He wants nothing to 
do with this expedition whatever.’* 

Then suddenly Farrell’s face lighted with a new 
thought. ** And he goes down to the camps and 
blabs the whole thing, eh?” 

“ I believe he won’t say a word about it, — neither 
he nor the half-breed here.” 

Farrell seemed scarcely convinced, and we went 
down in silence a little way. Then suddenly he 
said ; ‘‘ I think you ’ve got some game on. Say ! 
do you swear you are on the square with us?” 

Apache Kid frowned on him and, ‘‘ I give you my 
word of honour,” said he ; and so we came ploughing 
through the loose soil and sand into the sun-dried 


/ AM HELD AS A HOSTAGE 133 


grass, and thence on to the level below, where Mr. 
Pinkerton, now aided by his half-breed follower who 
had gone on down-hill and mounted his horse, was 
bunching the horses together. And over all was the 
sky with the daylight fading in it 


CHAPTER XIII 

In Which Apache Kid Behaves in His Wonted Way 

HAT with the pains upon my fore- 
head, caused by the blow I had come 
by when my unfortunate horse put 
his foot in that unchancy burrow and 
sent me flying ; what with that pain 
and the ache of my legs, and something else that was 
not a pain, but worse than a pain, I had scarcely the 
heart, I fear, to give Mr. Pinkerton as kindly a smile 
of welcome as he had in store for me on seeing me 
again alive. 

That other thing I speak of as worse than a pain 
was a horrible nervousness with which my hour of 
torture with the snake had endowed me. Yes, it can 
only have lasted about an hour, I think, that hideous 
experience, though then it seemed an eternity. But 
so had it affected me that when we gathered together 
on the plateau I paid little heed to the council of my 
companions, — had lost interest in their affairs. In- 
stead, I kept jerking my head into my shoulders, and 
caught myself even gasping suddenly and dodging a 
snake that leaped at me in the air, — a snake that, 
even as I sought to evade, I knew was not there at 
all, — a mere creature of my harassed and frayed 



IN HIS WONTED WAT 135 

nerves. Mere fancy I knew it to be, but still I 
must needs dodge it and blurt out a gasp of terror 
again and again. 

It was while I was still busied on this absurd per- 
formance, — still standing in the talking group and 
heedless of the talking, — that I saw Apache Kid 
knitting his brows at me, and supposed it was in 
contempt; and that caused me to pull myself to- 
gether and square myself, as a soldier may do under 
the eye of an officer. When I did so, I remember 
that I seemed to go to the other extreme; in my 
attempt to master this nervousness, I caught myself 
grinning. 

It was then that Mr. Pinkerton, who was holding 
back a little way, looking on, but not party to our 
doings, remarked to me, as he caught my eye 
again : 

“ I took a long shot at that horse of yours, sir, and 
put it out of its agony when it got its leg broke ; but 
things have been levelling up since then, and I think 
men and horses are just on a par again — one horse, 
one man.” 

I laughed hilariously at this saying, as though it 
were something hugely amusing. But between you 
and me, I do not think that Mr. Pinkerton spoke it 
from his own kind heart but spoke thus more as 
some sensitive men wear a cloak of pride or shyness 
or a false bombast to protect them from other men 
less finely tuned. It was, I believe, only to show 


136 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


a hard front before these new partners of ours, as 
villainous a trio as you ever clapped eyeS' on, that 
he spoke in this light way of the doings of death; 
because at my laugh I saw him frown as though he 
regretted that I could enjoy his bitter jest so fully. 

In a dazed way I saw the party mounting; but so 
great difficulty had I in gaining the saddle of a horse 
— whose horse I do not know; I think it was the 
mount of the man called Cockeye — that Donoghue 
came to my side and held the stirrup and gave me 
a ‘Meg up ” and, “Are you scared, or what? ” he said 
in my ear, low and angry and with something of con- 
tempt. “ You Ve made a hash of to-day for us as it 
is, with goin’ and gettin’ that accident. Are you 
scared o’ them fellers?’’ 

“ Scared ! ” said I. “ Man ! I ’ve been tortured.” 

“Been what?” said he, and he got on to that vi- 
cious mount of his with such a viciousness himself, 
in his pull of the rein and lunge of his spurs, that 
I saw Mr. Pinkerton give him a look as who should 
say : “ He ’s a devil of a man, that.” 

But Donoghue crowded his beast to my side and 
asked me what I meant by my remark of being tor- 
tured, and I told him the whole matter of it as we 
rode across the plateau, all lit now with the thin last 
glow of day. 

He listened with his head to one side and his loose 
jaw tightening and thrusting out. 

“I take back what I said to you,” said he. “I 


IN HIS WONTED WAT 


137 


take it back right now; and as for hindering our 
journey — why that could n’t be helped. Better that 
we met these fellows right here, face to face, instead 
of goin’ on unknowing and getting shot by ’em round 
the fire to-morrow night or plugged through the 
windows of the Lost Cabin three nights hence.” 

This might have given me an idea of how far we 
had still to go — or rather should I say, in a country 
such as this, of vast distance, of how nigh we already 
were to our journey’s end, had I been much heeding 
that evening. 

He held out his hand to me across his saddle (I 
was riding on his left), and as we shook hands I saw 
the man Pete look at us with a doubtful eye. 

And for a surety there was every reason why these 
fellows should be suspicious of us and be wary and 
watchful of our movements. 

That they were three unscrupulous scoundrels — 
** The toughest greazers that ever stole stock,” as Mr. 
Pinkerton had phrased it when speaking of them and 
their cronies (using the word ** greazer ” in its loose, 
slang sense, not necessarily implying thereby that 
they were actually Mexicans, which is the meaning 
of the name) — that they were capable of any treach- 
ery and cruelty themselves, there was no doubt. 
And as they were, so they would be very prone to 
judge others and were, doubtless, already thinking 
to themselves that we three had after all — for the 
present at least — the best of the bargain ; for had 


138 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

they set upon us and done away with us, where would 
have been their chance of coming to the Lost Cabin? 
As far away as ever; the Lost Cabin would still have 
been a needle in a haystack. 

On the other hand, I guessed them already argu- 
ing, we would be glad and even eager to kill them, 
though they desired to keep us alive — for a time. 

I suppose they took our handshake — Larry’s and 
mine — for a sign of some understanding between us 
and scented in it a treacherous design upon them, 
for they kept upon our flanks hereafter, at sight of 
which Donoghue laughed his ugly laugh and shook 
his horse forward a step, sneering at them over his 
shoulder. 

O ! We were a fine company to go into camp 
together, as we did within half an hour, before the 
last grasshoppers had ceased their chirring, on the 
side of the knoll where was a spring of water, a 
little pool overhung by a rock with strange amphib- 
ious insects darting away from its centre to the 
sheltering banks as we dipped our cans for water 
to make the flapjacks. 

To any chance observers, happening into our 
camp at twilight, we would have seemed nothing 
more dire than a round-up camp of cow-boys, I fancy, 
for after the meal, when pipes and cigarettes were lit 
and belts let out a hole or two and boots slackened, 
there was an air of out-door peace around the fire. 

Yet I need not tell you that the peace was on the 


IN HIS WONTED WAT 139 

surface — fanciful, unreal. As for me, the snake was 
leaping in my eyes out of the fire, when Apache Kid, 
as calm as you please, struck up a song. 

Heads jerked up and eyes glanced on him at the 
first stave. It seemed as though everything that any 
man there could do or say was to be studied for an 
underlying and furtive motive. 

It was “ The Spanish Cavalier ” he sang, with a 
very fine feeling, too, softly and richly. There is a 
deal of the sentimentalist about me, and the air, apart 
from the words, was ringing in my heart like a regret. 

The bright, sunny day,” he sang, “ it soon fades 
away,” and after he ceased the plain had fallen silent. 
The chirring of insects had gone and left the valley 
empty of sound. During all the journey I never 
heard so much as the twitter of any bird (except one 
of which you shall hear later), so I think that the grip- 
ping silence at the end of day must have been due 
only to the stopping of the insect life. By day one 
was not aware of any sound ; but at the close of day, 
when the air chilled, the silence was suddenly manifest 
Sure enough, the bright, sunny day was fading and 
in the silence, when the voice of the singer ceased, I 
must needs be away back in the homeland, counting 
the hours in my mind, reckoning them up and judg- 
ing of what might probably be afoot in the home- 
land then — and there is something laughable in the 
thought now, but I counted the difference in time the 
wrong way about and sat sentimentalising to myself 


140 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

that my mother perhaps was just gone out to walk in 
the Botanic Gardens, and picturing my little sister prat- 
tling by her side with her short white stockings slip- 
ping down on her brown legs, and looking back, 
dragging from my mother’s hand, to watch the blue- 
coated policeman at the corner twirling his whistle 
around his finger. Had I not been so wearied and 
worn, I would not have made this error in the reckon- 
ing. As likely as not my mother was then waking 
out of her first sleep, and thinking, as women do, of 
my material and spiritual welfare, all at the one time ; 
perhaps wondering if my socks were properly darned 
and putting up a loving prayer for my welfare. 

Then the singing ceased, and the cry that I now 
knew well, the dusk cry of the coyotes, rose in a 
howl, with three or four yelps in the middle of it and 
the doleful melancholy baying at the close. 

I looked round the group at the fire again. 

“ Well,” said Apache Kid, the first to speak, “ who ’s 
to night-herd the horses ? ” 

The man Dan rose up at that. It was he who 
alone of all my tormentors on the cliff had spoken a 
word with anything of kindness in it. 

** I ’ll take the first guard, if you like,” said he. 

Farrell looked across at Apache Kid. 

** One of your side, then,” said he, “ can take the 
next guard — share and share — time about, I guess ; 
eh?” 

Apache Kid threw the end of his cigarette into the 


IN HIS WONTED WAT 


HI 

fire and, drawing out his pouch, rolled another and 
moistened it before he replied. 

“ Why do you talk about sides at all? ” he asked. 
** I thought we were a joint stock company now? ” 

“ Well, well,” snapped Farrell, “ I mean one of you 
three — you or one of your partners.” 

‘‘ Quite so ; I know what you mean. I understand 
your meaning perfectly.” 

There was a pause and then said he, taking a brand 
from the fire and lighting his cigarette, so that I saw 
his full, healthy eye shine bright : “ If you are going 

to talk about sides in this expedition — then so be 
it. But I don’t think our side, as you call it, will 
bother with any night-herding; indeed, I think we 
need hardly trouble about saddling up or unpacking 
or cooking or anything — if you make it a matter 
of sides.” And he blew a feather of smoke. “I 
think my side will live like gentlemen between now 
and the arrival at the Lost Cabin Mine.” 

Every eye was fixed anxiously on him. 

You see,” he explained, ” the fact is, you need us 
and we don’t need you. It ’s a case of supply and de- 
mand and — seeing you talk of sides,” he said, with 
what must have been, to Farrell, an aggravating insis- 
tence, “ our side at present is wanted. It ’s almost a 
sort of example of the workings of capital and labour. 
No ! ” he ended, with a satisfied grunt, “ I don’t think 
there ’s any need for me to tend horses at all, thanks. 
1 ’m quite comfy by the fire.” 


142 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

There was a shrewd, calculating look on Farrell’s 
face as he looked Apache Kid cunningly in the eye a 
space. I could wager that he was making himself 
certain from this speech that Apache Kid was the 
principal in our expedition. I think he really be- 
lieved that I could say nothing of the Lost Cabin, 
even had I desired to, and from the way he looked 
then to Donoghue and looked back again to Apache 
Kid it struck me forcibly that he was wondering if it 
were possible that Larry Donoghue was not “ in the 
know ” to the full, but merely of the company in a 
similar way with myself. 

Then he rolled an eye back again to Apache Kid, 
and I remembered the sheriff of Baker City then, for 
Farrell’s words were the very words I had heard the 
sheriff use : “ You 're a deep man,” he said. 

“ And I 'm quite comfy, too,” broke in Donoghue. 
“ Thanks,” he added. “ And as for this young 
man beside me, I think he wants a rest to-night. A 
man that ’s had a snake wriggling at his nose for half 
of an afternoon is liable to want a little sleep and 
forgetting.” 

Everybody cocked an ear, so to speak, on this 
speech; but no one of those who did not understand 
asked an explanation. 

Farrell looked with meaning at Mr. Pinkerton, 
who sat out of the affair, but neither he nor the half- 
breed spoke a syllable, Pinkerton pulling on his 
corn-cob pipe, and the half-breed rubbing the silver 


IN HIS WONTED WAT 143 

buckle of his belt with the palm of his hand, and 
studying the reflection of fire-light in it. 

“ No, no,’* suddenly remarked Apache Kid, “ you 
could n’t ask Mr. Pinkerton to do that, nor Charlie 
either. We can’t be so inhospitable as to ask our 
guests of this evening to night-tend our horses.” 

“What the hell are you getting on about?” said 
Farrell, and then, as though thinking better, and con- 
sidering that a milder tone was more fitting, he said : 
“ I never asked them to.” 

“ No, no ; you did not ask them to,” said Apache, 
in a mock-conciliatory tone, and then, with a smile on 
his lips, he said gently: “But you were thinking 
that, and I — know — every — thought — that passes 
through your mind, Mr. Farrell.” 

You should have seen the man Pete at these soft- 
spoken words. 

I must give you an idea of what this fellow looked 
like. To begin with, I think I may safely say he 
looked like a villain, but more of the wolf order of 
the villain than the panther ; he had what you would 
call an ignorant face, — a heavy brow, high cheek- 
bones, very glassy and constantly wandering eyes, 
far too many teeth for his mouth, and they very large 
and animal like. And if ever I saw superstitious fear 
on a man’s face, it was on the face of that cut-throat. 

He looked at Apache Kid, who sat with his hat 
tilted back and his open, cheery, and devil-may-care 
face radiant to the leaping firelight, — looked at him 


144 "THE LOST CABIN MINE 


so that the firelight made on his face shadows, in- 
stead of lighting it; for he held his chin low and the 
mouth open. His hat was off and only his forehead 
was lit up. The rest was what I say — loose shadows. 
Then he looked at Farrell, as though to see if Farrell 
were not at all fearful, and, “ Say ! ” he said, “ I ’ll take 
‘ herd ’ to-night.” 

Farrell turned on him with a leer and laughed. 

“ I guess you ’d better go first then,” said he, be- 
fore midnight comes, and let Dan go second, after a 
three hours’ tend. You ’re the sort of man that is all 
very good robbing a train, but when you get in 
among the mountains with the boodle you get scared. 
And what for? For nothing! That’s the worst of 
you Cat’licks.” 

So Farrell pronounced the word, and the man flung 
up his head at that with an angry and defiant air, so 
that one only saw there the bravo now, and not the 
ignorant and superstitious savage. He was on the 
point of speech, but Apache Kid said : 

Sir, sir 1 it is very rude, to say the least of it, to 
malign any gentleman’s religion. I presume from 
your remark that you are of the Protestant persua- 
sion, but my own personal opinion is that you are 
both equally certain of winning into hell. If our 
Roman Catholic friend is kind enough to offer to re- 
lieve us of the monotony of night-herding duty, we 
can only thank him.” 

So Pete rose and tightened his belt, and went his 


IN HIS WONTED WAT 


H5 


ways ; and that in no less than time, for the horses 
were already restive, as though the loneliness of the 
place had taken possession of them. Of all beasts I 
know, I think horses the most influenced by their 
environment. 

Well, if this don’t beat cock-fightin’ ! ” I heard 
Mr. Pinkerton’s voice behind me, where he lay now, 
leaning on an elbow ; and then he said a word or two 
to the half-breed, who rose and departed out of the 
circle of the fire-shine. 

In a little space he returned, leading his own mount 
and Pinkerton’s by the lariats which were around 
their necks, and as he made fast these lariats to a 
stone Farrell looked at Mr. Pinkerton across the 
glow, and asked him, suspicious as ever, “What’s 
that for?” 

“ Oh ! Just so as not to be indebted to you,” re- 
plied Pinkerton, and coming closer to the fire he rolled 
his one grey blanket round him and, knocking out 
the ashes of his pipe, lay down to rest, the half-breed 
following suit. But after they had lain down, and when 
I, a little later, at a word from Donoghue, suggesting I 
should “ turn in,” unpacked my blankets, which I had 
found among the pile of our mixed belongings, I saw 
the half-breed’s eyes still open and with no sign of 
sleep in them. “ So,” said I to myself, “ Pinkerton 
and the half-breed, I expect, have arranged to share 
watch and watch, without having the appearance of 
doing so.” 


10 


146 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

And indeed one could scarcely wonder at any 
such protective arrangement in such a camp as this. 
Donoghue and Apache Kid, indeed, were the only two 
there who could close their eyes in sleep that night 
with anything like a reasonable belief that the chances 
of their awakening to life again were greater than 
their chances of never breathing again the sage- 
scented air of morning. 


CHAPTER XIV 

Apache Kid Prophesies 

OU may wonder how it was possible for 
me to lie down, to roll myself round 
in my blankets, to fall asleep in such 
a camp, in such company as that. I, 
indeed, wondered at myself as I did so, 
wondered how I came by the heedlessness, for I can- 
not call it courage, that allowed me to compose myself 
to slumber. Anything might have happened in the 
dark hours, murder and sudden death ; but I was ex- 
cessively fatigued; my body ached; my nerves too 
were unstrung by the torture of the cliff. Sleep I 
must and sleep I did, on the instant that I stretched 
myself and laid down my head. Perhaps the sigh 
with which I dismissed from my mind the anxieties 
that might have kept me wakeful was more of a 
prayer than a sigh. 

Across the fire of smaller branches that had cooked 
our supper, in the preparing of which each took part, 
a great log was laid, so that no replenishing would be 
necessary. 

It was the sound of Donoghue’s voice that woke me 
to blue night, starshine, and the red glow of the log. 
His position was unaltered. I could have believed 



148 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

that he had not moved a muscle since my lying down, 
and the stars told me I had slept some time. He 
reclined with his legs crossed, his feet stretched to the 
glow, his hands in his coat pockets, and his unloosened 
blanket-roll serving for a cushion to the small of his 
back. 

“ There ain’t no call for me to turn in,” he was say- 
ing. “ I don’t have to turn in to please you.” 

I snuggled the blankets under my chin and looked 
to see who he was addressing. 

All the others of the company were lying down, but 
it was evidently Farrell who had made the prior re- 
mark, for he now worried with his shoulders in his 
blankets to cast them from him, and rising on an 
elbow, said : “ O, no ! You don’t have to. But it 
looks to me mighty like as if you was scared of us — 
that you don’t lay down and sleep. We ’re square 
enough with you.” 

Donoghue looked at him in that insolent fashion 
of opening the eyes wide, and then almost shutting 
them, and sneered: 

''Well, well, what are you always opening your 
eyes up a little ways and peepin’ at one for? One 
would think you was scared o’ me; and that feller 
there, that Dan, or what you call him, he keeps 
waking up and giving a squint around, too. You ’re 
square with us? We’re square with you, ain’t 
we?” 

Farrell flung the blankets back from him and cried 


APACHE KID PROPHESIES 149 

out : “ Do you know what I ’m goin’ to tell you ? 
I wouldn’t trust you, not an inch. I got my gun 
here ready, if you try any nonsense.” 

The gleam of an unholy satisfaction was on Dono- 
ghue’s face then, and he cried out : “ Well, sir, if I find 
a man trust me, I ’m square with him ; but if he don’t 
trust me, I don’t play fair with him. That ’s right, I 
guess, ain’t it? ” 

This, to my mind, was a very faulty morality, but it 
seemed not so to Farrell. 

‘‘ Yes,” he agreed. “ I reckon that ’s generally 
understood,” and then he showed quite a turn for 
argument on his own plane of thought. 

“ But you don’t trust me, neither,” said he, ** and if 
I was payin’ you back the way you talk about, I ’d up 
and plug you through the head.” 

Argument was not in Donoghue’s line but he cried 
out: 

“ And where would I be while you were tryin’ it 
on?” 

Farrell did not answer, and in the pause Donoghue 
did indeed continue the argument, unwittingly, to its 
logical conclusion : 

“ No, no, my boy,” he said, you would n’t plug 
me here. You would n’t plug me till we got you 
what you wanted. O ! I know your kind well. You 
thought you held the trumps when you corralled the 
lad there,” and he jerked his head in my direction 
“ But you did n’t.” 


150 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

**lt seems to me like as we did,” said Farrell, with 
a vindictive leer, “ else why are we here now ? ” 

‘‘Here now?” snapped Donoghue. “Why, you’re 
here because my partner is so durned soft, times. 
He would n’t — go — on — and leave the lad,” he 
drawled contemptuously. “ What good was the boy 
to you, anyhow? ” he asked. “Looks as if you knew 
you were trying it on with a soft, queer fellow. I ’d 
ha’ let you eat the boy if you wanted and jest taken 
a note o’ your ugly blue mug in my mind and said 
to myself: ‘ Larry, my boy, when you see that feller 
ag’in after you ’ve got through with this Lost Cabin 
Mine — you shoot him on sight ! ’ ” 

“And what if the mug was to follow you up?” 
said Farrell. 

All this while there was no movement round the 
fire, only that I saw Apache Kid’s hand drawing 
down the blankets from his face. Pinkerton and the 
half-breed were a little beyond Donoghue and lying 
somewhat back so that I did not know whether or 
not they were awakened by this talk. And just then 
Dan sat up suddenly, glared out upon the plain to 
the four points of the compass, and screamed out : 

“ The bosses ! Where ’s the bosses? ” 

We were all bolt upright then, like jumping-jacks, 
and leaning on our palms and twisting about staring 
out strained into the moon-pallid plain. 

Dan leapt to his feet. 

“ The bosses is gone ! ” he cried, and he rushed 


APACHE KID PROPHESIES 15 1 

across to the two horses that were tied with the 
lariats. 

** Lend me a hoss/' he cried. “ We must go out 
and see where Pete has got to with them horses." 

lend you dis — you sumracadog!" said the 
half-breed in his guttural voice and he flung up his 
polished revolver in Dan’s face. 

It was Apache Kid who restored some semblance 
of order to the camp. 

“ All right, Dan," he said. ‘‘ Don’t worry. It ’s 
too late now." 

We all turned to him in wonder. 

“ Pete thought it advisable to take the whole bunch 
away. He agreed that it was advisable to make 
what little capital he could out of his expedition into 
this part of the country. On the whole, I think he 
was sensible. Yes — sensible is the word," he said, 
thoughtfully wagging his head to the fire and then 
looking up and beaming on us all. 

"What you mean?" cried Farrell. 

" Just what I say,” said Apache Kid. " He simply 
walked the whole bunch quietly away five minutes 
after he bunched them together out there." 

" You saw him doin’ that ! You saw his game and 
said nothing! " cried Farrell. 

" Even so ! ’’ replied Apache Kid. 

Farrell glared before him speechless. 

"What in creation made him do that?” said Dan, 
going back like a man dazed to his former place. 


152 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

“You mean who in creation made him do that?” 
Apache Kid said lightly; “and I have to acknowl- 
edge that it was 1.” 

“You!” thundered Farrell. “I didn’t see you 
say a word to him. You bought him off some ways, 
did you? How did you do it? ” 

“ O ! ” said Apache Kid. “ I simply gave him a 
hint of the terrors in store for him if he remained 
here. You heard me ; and he was a man who could 
understand a hint such as I gave. I took him first, 
as being easiest. But I have no doubt that you two 
also will think better of your intention and depart — 
before it is too late. He went first. You, Mr. Far- 
rell, I think, will have the honour of going last.” 

“ I don’t know what you mean,” said Farrell, like a 
man scenting something beyond him. 

“No,” said Apache Kid. “I understand that. 
You will require some other method used upon you. 
I don’t know if it was, as you suggested, the gentle- 
man’s religion that was to blame for it, but he suffered 
from the fear of man. That was why he went away. 
Now you, Farrell, I don’t think you fear man, 
God ” 

“ No ! Nor devil I ” cried Farrell. 

“Nor no more do I!” said Dan, turning on 
Apache Kid. “Nor no more do I. And if the 
loss o’ the bosses don’t cut any figure to you, it 
don’t no more to us, for we ’re goin’ through with 
you right to the end.” 


APACHE KID PROPHESIES 153 

But I thought that a something about his under- 
lip, as I saw it in the shadows of the fire, belied his 
strong statement. Apache Kid was of my opinion, 
for he looked keenly in Dan’s face and remarked: 
“A very good bluff, Daniel.” 

‘‘ Don’t you Daniel me ! ” cried the man. You ’re 
gettin’ too derned fresh and frisky and gettin’ to 
fancy yourself.” 

“ That ’s right. A bluff should be sustained,” said 
Apache Kid, insolently, and then dropping the con- 
versation, as though it were of absolutely no mo- 
ment, he rolled himself again in his blanket. And 
this he had no sooner done — unconcerned, un- 
troubled, heedless of any possible villainy of these 
two men — than Pinkerton’s voice spoke behind me: 

“ He ’s a good man spoiled, is that Apache Kid. 
I could ha’ been doin' with a son like that.” 

“ I think you ’re kind o’ a soft mark, right enough,” 
sneered Farrell to the now recumbent form of Apache 
Kid. “ I think you ’re too soft to scare me.” 

Apache Kid was up in a moment. 

“ Soft ! ” he cried, “ soft ! ” 

And on his face was the look that he gave the 
Italian livery-stable keeper at Camp Kettle, only, as 
the saying is, more so. 

I heard Donoghue gasp, you would have thought 
more in fear than in exultation : “ Say ! When he 
gets this ways you want to be back out of his 
way.” 


154 the lost cabin MINE 

** Look at me ! ” said Apache, standing up. “You 
see I Ve got on no belt ; my gun 's lying there with 
the belt. I Ve got no knife — nothing. Will you 
stand up, sir, and let me show you if I 'm soft, 
seeing that I have given you my word — not to kill 
you?” You should have heard the way these last 
words came from him. “ Will you stand up and 
let me just hammer you within an inch of your 
end?” 

Farrell did not quail ; I will do him that justice. 
But he sat considering, and then he jerked his head 
and jerked it again doggedly, and, “No,” he said, 
“ no, I reckon not.” 

The fire of anger had leapt quick enough to life 
in Apache Kid, and it seemed to ebb as suddenly. 

“All right,” he said. “All right. Perhaps it is 
better so. It would dirty my hands to touch you. 
And indeed,” he was moving back to his place 
now, “lead is too clean for you as well.” 

He turned as he reached where his blankets lay. 

“ Farrell,” he said, “ it is at the end of a rope that 
you will die.” 


CHAPTER XV 

In Which the tables Are I’urned — at Some Cost 

FTER that peace came, and I dozed 
again. 

It was a shot, followed by a scream, 
that awoke me ; and those kind gods 
who guard us in our sleep and in our 
waking caused me even at that moment not to obey 
the sudden impulse to leap up. Instead, I flung my 
hand to my revolver and lay flat — and in doing so 
saved my life. 

Beside me, with the first quick opening of my 
eyes, I saw Donoghue kick in his blankets, like a 
cat in a sack, and then lie still, and the second 
shot rang in my ears, fired by the man Dan from 
across the fire and aimed at me. But truly, it was 
fated that Dan should go first of these two who re- 
mained with us of his side, as Farrell had called it, 
and it was I who was fated to do the deed. Let 
me put it in that way, I beg of you. Let me say 
“fated” in this instance, if in no other, for it is a 
terrible thing to slay a man. And then I saw what 
had befallen, after my shot had gone home and 
Dan lay on his face where he had fallen — dead. 




156 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

with the light of morning, of a new day, just quiv- 
ering up the eastern sky, and making the thing more 
ghastly. 

Farrell and he must have quietly whispered over 
their plan where they lay — to make a sudden joint 
attack upon us. Dan's part had evidently been to 
put an end to Larry and to me, while Farrell at- 
tended to Apache Kid; for there was Farrell now 
with a revolver in each hand, and both were held 
to Apache Kid’s head. 

At hearing my shot, for a moment Farrell glanced 
round, and, seeing that Dan had failed in his attempt, 
he cried out: “ If you move, I kill Apache Kid here, 
right off. Mind now! I kill him — and let the Lost 
Cabin Mine slide. We '11 see who 's boss o' this 
round up I ” 

And then it suddenly struck me as strange that 
they had not reckoned on the other two who were 
with us, — Mr. Pinkerton and the half-breed. Even 
as I was then considering their daring, there came a 
moan from beside me. I flung round at the sound, 
and there lay Pinkerton with his hand to his breast. 
Yes; I understood now. That sound that woke me 
was not of one shot ; it was two, — Dan’s first shot 
at Larry, and Farrell’s at Mr. Pinkerton. But what 
of the half-breed? I bent to Mr. Pinkerton and, 
with my hand under his neck, said; “ O, Mr. Pinker- 
ton ! Mr. Pinkerton ! O, Mr. Pinkerton ! can I do 
anything for you ? ” 


THE TABLES ARE TURNED 157 

He looked upon me with his kind eyes, full of the 
last haze now, and gasped : ** My girl ! My girl ! 
You will ” and he leant heavy in my arms. 

“ I will see to her,” said I. “ O, sir ! this you 
have got for us. It is through us that this has 
happened. I will see that she never wants.” 

These or some words such as these I spoke, — for 
I never could rightly recall the exact speech in look- 
ing back on that sad affair. 

“You — you are all right, my son,” he said, “ but 
if Apache Kid gets out o' this — he 's — he *s more 
fit like for ” 

I saw his hand fumble again on his breast, and 
thought it was in an attempt to open his shirt ; but 
then I caught the agony in his eye, such as you may 
have seen on a dumb man trying to make himself 
understood and failing in the attempt Something 
of that look, but more woeful, more piteous to see, 
was on his face. He was trying to hold his hand to 
me ; when I took it, he smiled and said : 

“ You or Apache — Meg.” And that was the last 
of this kindly and likeable man who had done so 
much for us. 

But what of the half-breed? Was he, too, slain? 
Not so ; but he was of a more cunning race than I 
am sprung of. When I laid back Mr. Pinkerton’s 
head and again looked around, the half-breed was 
gone from the place where he had lain. 

There, on his belly almost, he was creeping upon 


158 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

Farrell from the rear. To me it seemed the maddest 
and most forlorn undertaking. 

There was Farrell with the two revolvers held to 
Apache Kid’s head, talking softly, too quietly for me 
to hear, and Apache Kid replying in a low tone with- 
out any attempt at rising. And Farrell cried out: 
“ Nobody try to fire on me ! At a shot I fire too ! 
My fingers is jest ready. I ’m a desperate man.” 

I crouched low, my breath held in dread, my 
heart pounding in my side, at long intervals, so 
that I thought it must needs burst. I did not 
even dare look again at that crawling savage, lest 
Farrell might perhaps cast another such quick glance 
as he had already bestowed on me and, seeing the 
direction of my gaze, realise his danger. 

The result of such a discovery I dared not imagine. 
There was enough horror already, without addition. 
It was just then that Donoghue gave a queer little 
wheezing moan and his eyes opened ; but even as I 
turned to him, “ crash ! ” went a shot and I spun 
round, a cry on my lips; and there lay Apache Kid, 
as I had seen him before Donoghue’s voice called 
me away from observing him. But now he had 
clutched Farrell’s right wrist in what must have 
been a mighty sudden movement, and was push- 
ing it from him. He had leapt sidewise a little 
way, but without attempting to rise. 

There, thrusting away, in a firm grasp, the hand 
that held the smoking weapon, he still looked up in 


THE TABLES ARE TURNED 159 


Farrell’s eye, the other revolver before him so that 
he must have looked fairly into it. 

“You durn fool!” said Farrell. “You think I 
did n’t mean what I said ? Well, let me tell you that 
I run no more chances. Oh ! you need n’t grasp 
this arm so fierce. I don’t have to use it. But, 
Apache Kid, I ’m goin’ to kill you now. I reckon 
that that there Lost Cabin ain’t for any of us, — not 
for you, for sure. Are you ready? ” 

“ Quite ready,’’ I heard Apache Kid say, his voice 
as loud as Farrell’s now, but more exultant still. It 
horrified me to hear his voice so callous as he looked 
on death. I wondered if now I should not risk a shot 
as a last hope to save him. 

“ There, then ! ’’ cried Farrell. 

But there followed only the metallic tap of the 
hammer, — no report, only that steely click ; and 
before one could well know what had happened, 
Apache Kid was the man on top, shoving Farrell’s 
head down in the sand, but still clutching Farrell’s 
right wrist and turning aside that hand that held the 
weapon which, on his first sudden movement, had 
sent its bullet into the sand beside Apache. 

“ You goat ! ” cried Apache Kid. “ When you 
intend to use two guns, see that they both are 
loaded, or else don’t hold the one that you ’ve 

fired the last from right in front of ” He broke 

off and flung up his head, like a wolf baying, and 
laughed. 


i6o THE LOST CABIN MINE 

He was a weird sight then, his face blackened 
from the shot he had evaded. But by this time, 
I need hardly tell you, I was by his side, helping to 
hold down the writhing Farrell — and the half-breed 
brought us the lariat from his horse and we trussed 
Farrell up, hands and feet, and then stood up. And 
as we turned from him there was Donoghue sitting 
up with a foolish look on his face and the blood 
trickling on his brow ; and, pointing a hand at us, he 
cried out, “ Come here, some o’ you sons o’ guns, 
and tie up my head a bit so as I kin git up and see 
his hangin’ afore I die.” 

Farrell writhed afresh in his bonds as he heard 
Donoghue’s cry, and in a voice in which there seemed 
nothing human, he roared, “ What ! is that feller 
Donoghue not killed ? ” 

“ No, sir ! ” Donoghue replied, his head falling and 
his chin on his breast, but eyes looking up, with the 
blood running into them from under his ragged eye- 
brows : “ No, sir, — after you ! ” he cried, and he let 
out that hideous oath that I had heard him use once 
before, but cannot permit myself to write or any man 
to read. 


CHAPTER XVI 

Sounds in the Forest 


E hanged Farrell in the morning, for 
he had broken the compact and he 
was a murderer. And we laid Pink- 
erton to his rest in the midst of 
the plain, with a cairn of stones to 

mark the spot. 

Let that suffice. As for these two things you may 
readily understand I have no heart to write. And 
indeed, it would be a depraved taste that would desire 
to read of them in detail. I know you are not of 
those who will blame me for this reticence. 

When I told Apache Kid of Mr. Pinkerton's last 
words he was greatly moved, as I could see, though 
he kept a calm front, and he told the half-breed, who 
left us then, to convey to Miss Pinkerton our united 
sympathy with a promise that we would visit her 
immediately on our return from our expedition. 

Then we set out again, a melancholy company, as 
you will understand, Apache Kid and I carrying all 
the provisions that he thought fit to take along with 
us; for Donoghue was too light-headed to be bur- 
dened with any load, and lurched along beside us as 
we made toward the hills that closed in the plain 



II 



i 62 the lost cabin MINE 

to north, lurched along with the red handkerchief 
around his head and singing snatches of song now 
and again. The bullet had ploughed a furrow along 
the side of his head, and though the bleeding had 
stopped he was evidently mentally affected by the 
wound. 

It was drawing near nightfall again when we came 
to the end of this seeming cul-de-sac of a valley, and 
the hills on either side drew closer to us. 

Before us now as we mounted, breathing heavily, 
up the incline we saw the woods, all the trees stand- 
ing motionless, and already we could look well into 
the hazy blue deep of that place. 

“ I have been here before,” said Apache, “ but not 
much farther. We thought we might have to push 
clear through this place and try what luck there was 
in ge^tting a shelter beyond. They pushed us very 
close that time,” he said meditatively. But so ab- 
sently did he speak this that, though I could not 
make any guess as to who it was that was “ pushing ” 
him close ” and who was with him on that perilous 
occasion, I forbore to question. 

You have seen men in that mood yourself, I am 
sure, speaking more to the air than to you. 

He turned about at the entering into the wood and 
we looked down on the plain stretching below us. A 
long while he gazed with eyelids puckered, scanning 
the shelving and stretching expanse. 

“ Two parties have followed us,” he said in a whis- 


SOUNDS IN THE FOREST 163 


per almost. “ God grant there be no more, else when 
we get the wealth that lies in store for us we shall 
hardly be able to enjoy it for thinking of all it has 
cost us. It has been the death of one good man 
already,” he added. ** Ah, well ! There is no sign 
of any mortal there. We must push on through this 
wilderness before us.” 

He stopped again and considered, Donoghue rock- 
ing impotent and dazed beside us. 

** I wonder where Canlan is to-night,” he said, and 
then we plunged into the woods. 

If the silence of the plain had been intense, we 
were now to know a silence more august. I think it 
was our environment then that made Apache Kid 
speak in that whisper. There was something in this 
deep wood before us that hushed our voices. I think 
it was the utter lack of even the faintest twitter of any 
bird, where it seemed fitting that birds should be, that 
influenced us then almost unconsciously. Our very 
tread fell echoless in the dust of ages there, the 
fallen needles and cones of many and many an undis- 
turbed year. It was with a thrill that I found that 
we had suddenly come upon what looked like a path 
of some kind. Apache Kid was walking first, Dono- 
ghue following, the knotted ends of the handkerchief 
sticking out comically at the back of his head under 
his hat. 

You see, we 're on to a trail now,” said Apache 
Kid, as he trudged along. You never strike a trail 


i 64 the lost cabin MINE 

just at the entrance into a place like this. Travellers 
who have passed here at various times, you see, come 
into the wood at all sorts of angles, where the trees 
are thin. But after one gets into the wood a bit and 
the trees get thicker, in feeling about for a passage 
you find where someone has been before you and you 
take the same way. A week, or a month, or a year 
later someone else comes along and he follows you. 
This trail here, for all that you can see the print of a 
horse’s hoof here and there on it, may not have been 
passed over this year by any living soul. There 
may not have been anyone here since I was here last 
myself, three years ago — yes, that print there may 
be the print of my own horse’s hoof, for I remember 
how the rain drenched that day, charging through 
the pass here and dripping from the pines and 
trickling through all the woods.” 

“ It is a pass, then?” said I. 

Oh, yes,” he explained. “ It is what is called, in 
the language of the country, a buck’s trail. That 
does not mean, as I used to think, an Indian trail. 
It is the slang word for a priest. You find these 
bucks’ trails all over the country. They were made 
by the priests who came up from old Mexico to 
evangelise and convert the red heathen of the land. 
I think these old priests must have been regular 
wander-fever men to do it. Think of it, man, cutting 
a way through these woods. Aha ! See, there ’s a 
blaze on a tree there. You can scarcely make it 


SOUNDS IN THE FOREST 165 

out, though ; it ’s been rained upon and snowed upon 
and blown upon so long, year in, year out. Turn 
about, now that we are past it, and you see the blaze 
on this side. Perhaps the old buck made that him- 
self, standing back from the tree and swinging his 
axe and saying to himself: * If this leads me nowhere, 
I shall at least be able to find my way back plain 
enough.* Well ! It ’s near here somewhere that I 
stopped that time, three years ago. Do you make 
out the sound of any water trickling? ” 

We stood listening; but there was no sound save 
that of our breathing, and then suddenly a “ tap, tap, 
tap ’* broke out loud in the forest, so that it startled 
me at the moment, though next moment I knew it 
was the sound of a busy woodpecker. 

We moved on a little farther, and then Apache 
Kid cried out in joy: 

Aha ! Here we are ! See the clear bit down 
there where the trees thin out?” 

We pushed our way forward to where, through the 
growing dusk of the woods, there glowed between the 
boles a soft green, seeming very bright after the dark, 
rusty green of these motionless trees. 

“ There is n’t much elbow room round about us 
here to keep off the wildcats,” said Apache Kid, 
looking round into the forest as we stepped forth 
into this oasis and found there a tiny spring with a 
teacup fill of water in its hollow. The little trickle 
that went from it seemed just to spread out and lose 


i66 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

itself almost immediately in the earth ; but it served 
our purpose, and here we camped. 

Donoghue had been like a dazed man since morn- 
ing, but now, after the strong tea, he was greatly re- 
freshed and had his wits collected sufficiently to 
suggest that we should keep watch that night, lest 
another party were following us up. He also washed 
the wound in his forehead, and, finding it bleeding 
afresh after that, pricked what he called the ** pimples ” 
from a fir-tree, and with the sap exuding therefrom 
staunched the bleeding again, and I suppose used 
one of the best possible healers in so doing. 

That there were wildcats in the woods there was no 
doubt They screamed half the night, with a sound 
like weeping infants, very dolorous to hear. Apache 
Kid took the first watch, Donoghue the second, and 
I the third. I was to waken them at sunrise, and 
after Donoghue shook me up and I sat by the glow- 
ing fire, I remember the start with which I saw, after 
a space, as I sat musing of many things, as one will 
muse in such surroundings, two gleaming eyes look- 
ing into mine out of the woods — just the eyes, upright 
ovals with a green light, turning suddenly into hori- 
zontal ovals and changing colour to red as I became 
aware of them. 

We were generally careful to make our fire of such 
wood as would flame, or glow, without shedding out 
sparks that might burn our blankets ; but some such 
fuel had been put on the fire that night, and it suddenly 


SOUNDS IN THE FOREST 167 


crackled up then and sent forth a shower of sparks. 
And at that the eyes disappeared. I flicked the 
sparks off my sleeping comrades and then sat musing 
again, looking up on the stars and alternately into the 
darkness of the woods and into the glow of the fire, 
and suddenly I saw all along the forest a red line of 
light spring to life, and my attention was riveted 
thereon. 

I saw it climb the stems of trees far through the 
wood and run up to the branches. A forest fire, 
thought I to myself, and wondered if our danger was 
great in that place. I snuffed the air. There was 
certainly the odour of burning wood, but that might 
have been from our camp-fire alone, and there was 
also the rich, unforgettable odour of the balsam. 

But so greatly did the line of fire increase and glow 
that I stretched forth my hand and touched Don- 
oghue upon the shoulder. He started up, and, fol- 
lowing the pointing of my finger, glared a moment 
through the spaces of the forest. Then he dropped 
back again. 

It is the dawn,” he said, and drew the blankets 
over his head. Wake me in another hour.” 

But I sat broad awake, my heart glowing with a 
kind of voiceless worship, watching that marvellous 
dawn. It spread more slowly than I would have 
imagined possible, taking tree by tree, running left 
and right, and creeping forward like an advancing 
army ; and then suddenly the sky overhead was full 


i68 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


of a quivering, pale light, and in the dim blue pool of 
the heavens the stars went out. But no birds sang to 
the new day, only I heard again the tap-tap of a 
woodpecker echoing about through the woods. 

So I filled the can with water, which was a slow 
process at that very tiny spring, and mixed the flour 
ready for the flapjacks and then woke my comrades. 

I must not weary you, however, recounting hour 
by hour as it came. I have other things to tell you 
of than these, — matters regarding hasty, hot-blooded 
man in place of a chronicle of slow, benignant 
nature. 

On the journey of this day we came very soon to 
what seemed to be the “ height of land ” in that part, 
and descending on the other side came into a place 
of swamp where the mosquitos assaulted us in clouds. 
So terribly did they pester us that on the mid-day 
camp, while Apache Kid made ready our tea (for 
eatables we did with a cold flapjack apiece, having 
made an extra supply at breakfast, so as to save time 
at noon), I employed myself in switching him about 
the head with a leafy branch in one hand, while with 
the other I drove off another cloud of these pests 
that made war upon me. 

No sooner had we the tea ready than we put clods 
and wet leaves upon the fire, raising a thick smoke, 
a smudge,” as it is called, and sitting in the midst 
of that protecting haze we partook of our meal, 
coughing and spluttering, it is true ; but the smoke in 


SOUNDS IN THE FOREST 169 


the eyes and throat was a mere nothing to the mos- 
quito nuisance. 

I think that for the time being the mosquitos 
spurred us forward as much as did our fear of being 
forestalled in out quest. Mounting higher on our 
left where a cold wind blew, instead of dipping down 
into the next wooded valley, we found peace at last. 
As we tramped along on this crest, where our view 
was no longer cramped, where at last we could 
see more than the next knoll before us or the 
next abyss of woods, I noticed Apache constantly 
scanning the country as though he were trying to 
take his bearings. 

Donoghue, who was now more like his rational, or 
irrational self, soon seemed to waken up to his sur- 
roundings, and fell to the same employ. 

It was to the valley westward, now that we were 
upon the ridge, that they directed their attention. 
Donoghue, his loose jaw hanging, his teeth biting on 
his lips, posted on ahead of us and suddenly he 
stopped, stood revealed against the blue peak of the 
mountain on whose ridge we now travelled, in an 
attitude that bespoke some discovery. He was on a 
little eminence of the mountain’s shoulder, a treeless 
mound where boulders of granite stood about in 
gigantic ruin, with other granite outposts dotted 
down the hill into the midst of the trees, which stood 
there small and regular, just as you see them in a 
new plantation at home. He shaded his eyes from 


170 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

the light, looked finally satisfied, and then sat down 
to await our coming. 

Apache stepped forward more briskly ; quick and 
eager we trotted up the rise where Donoghue merely 
pointed into the valley that had now for over an hour 
been so eagerly scanned. There, far off, in the green 
forest bottom, the leaden grey glint of a lake showed 
among the wearisome woods. 

“ Ah ! We ’ll have a smoke up,” said Apache, 
with an air of relief. So we sat down on our blanket- 
rolls in the sunlight. There was a gleam in my com- 
panions’ eyes, a look of expectation on their faces, and 
after that ** smoke up ” Apache spoke with a deter- 
mined voice, dropping his cigarette end and tramping 
it with his heel. 

** We camp at that lake to-night,” said he. 

To-night?” said I, in astonishment, for it seemed 
to me a monstrous length to go before nightfall ; but 
he merely nodded his head vehemently, and said 
again : ** To-night,” and then after a pause : “ We 
lose time,” said he, there may be others ; ” and we 
rose to our feet. 

“ We could n’t camp up here, anyhow,” said Don- 
oghue, looking round. 

It was truly a weird sight there, for we could see 
so many valleys now, hollows, gulches, clefts in the 
chaos of the mountains; here, white masts of trees 
all lightening-struck on a blasted knoll; there, a 
rocky cut in the face of the landscape like a mon- 


SOUNDS IN THE FOREST 171 

strous scar; at another place a long, toothed ridge 
that must have broken many a storm in its day. Be- 
sides, already, though it was but afternoon, a keen, 
icy-cold wind ran like a draught there and the voice of 
the wind arose and died in our ears from somewhere 
in that long, rocky backbone, with a sound like a rail- 
way train going by ; and so it would arise and cease 
again, and then cry out elsewhere in a voice of lamen- 
tation, low and mournful 

Apache Kid was looking round and round, his eyes 
wide and bright. 

“ I should like to see this in Winter,” said he, 
“ when leaves fall and cold winds come.” 

** There 's no mortal man ever saw this in Winter,” 
said Donoghue, “ and no man ever will.” 

I saw Apache Kid linger, and look on that terrible 
and awesome landscape, with a half-frightened fond- 
ness ; and then he cast one more glance at the leaden 
grey of the lake below and another at a peak on our 
right and, his bearings thus in mind, led the way 
downward into that dark and forbidding valley. 

I shall never forget the journey down to that 
lake. 

Winding here, winding there, using the axe fre- 
quently as the thin trees I mentioned were passed, 
and we entered the virgin forest below, close and 
tangled, we worked slowly down-hill; and it was 
with something of pleasure that we came at last 
again onto what looked like a trail through the forest. 


172 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

It was just like one of the field paths at home for 
breadth ; but a perfect wall of tangled bush and trees 
netted together with a kind of tangled vine (the pea- 
vine, I believe it is called), closed it in on either side. 

We were on the track of the indomitable “ buck ” 
again, I thought. But it was not so. His trail had 
kept directly on upon the hill, Apache Kid told me. 

‘‘ I thought you saw it from the knoll there,” he 
said, and then with a queer look on his face, “ but you 
can ’t go back now to look on it. Man, do you know 
that a hunger takes me often to go back and see just 
such places as that on the summit there? I take an 
absolute dread that I must die without ever seeing 
them again. There are places I cannot allow myself 
to think of lest that comes over me that forces — 
aye, forces — me to go back again for one look 
more. I love a view like that more than ever any 
man loved a woman.” 

Donoghue looked round to me and touched his 
forehead and shook his head gently. 

“ Rathouse,” he said ; “ crazy as ever they make 
** 

em. 

*‘But this is a trail we have come onto, sure 
enough,” I said. 

My companions looked at it quietly and I noticed 
how they both at once unslung their Winchesters 
from their shoulders, for Donoghue had again taken 
his share of our burdens. 

Not exactly a trail,” said Apache Kid, at least. 


SOUNDS IN THE FOREST 173 

neither an Indian’s trail nor a buck’s trail this time. 
What was that, Donoghue ? ” 

A sharp crack, as of a branch broken near us, 
came distinctly to our ears. 

Donoghue did not answer directly but said instead : 

“You walk first; let Francis here in the middle. 
I ’ll come last,” and Donoghue dropped behind me. 

Apache nodded and we started on our way. 

Neither to left nor right could we see beyond a few 
feet, so close did the underbrush still whelm the way. 

The sound of our steps in the stillness was more 
eerie than ever to my ears. I felt that I should go 
barefoot here by right, soundless, stealthy, watching 
every foot of the way for a lurking death in the 
bushes. 

“ Crack,” sounded again a broken branch on our 
left. 

“ Well,” said Apache, softly — I was treading almost 
on his heels and Donoghue was close behind me — 
“twigs don’t snap of their own accord like that in 
mid-summer.” 

We kept on, however, not hastening our steps at all, 
but at the same even, steady pace, and suddenly again 
in the stillness — “ Crack ! ” 

Again a branch or twig had snapped near by in the 
thick woods through which we could not see. 


CHAPTER XVII 


*The Coming of Mike Canlan 



HERE was a cold shiver ran in my 


spine at that second crack, for it was 
eerie to know that some live thing, 


man or beast, was following us up 
through the bushes. 


“ It 's a lion, sure thing,” Donoghue said behind 
me, ** and it 's goin’ at this stalking of us darned care- 
less, too. I wisht we could get to a clear place and 
give him a chance to show himself.” 

*‘Lion?” asked I, astonished. 

“ Yes — panther, that is,” said Apache Kid. 

“In the phraseology of the country, that is,” I 
suggested. 

Apache looked over his shoulder at me. 

“You are pretty cool for a tenderfoot,” he re- 
marked. “ This is a bad spot for us to be stalked 
by a beast like that. Let me come behind now, 
Larry,” he continued. “We are getting to a clear 
place, I think, and he may spring before we get 


out.” 


“Not you,” said Larry. “Just you go on ahaid 
and let the lad keep in between.” 



THE COMING OF MIKE CAN LAN 175 


Here the bushes thinned out considerably and 
when we reached this opener part Donoghue bade 
us walk straight on. 

Don’t look back,” said he. “ Let him think we 
don’t know he ’s followin’. Give him a chance to 
cross this here glade. We’ll stop just inside them 
further trees and if he shows himself there, we ’ll get 
him then, sure thing. What between men and beasts 
we suttingly have been followed up some this trip, 
and I ’m gettin’ tired of it. This here followin’ up 
has got to end.” 

But though we carried out Donoghue’s suggestion, 
crossing the open space, entering again on the path 
where it continued down-hill in the forest again, and 
halting there, the “ lion ” did not show himself. 

It was here, while standing a little space, waiting 
for the panther’s appearance, if panther it was that 
shadowed us, that Apache Kid pointed a finger at 
the ground before us, where a tiny trickle of water, 
in crossing the path, made it muddy and moist. 

“See the deer marks?” he whispered. “Neat, 
aren’t they? This, you see, is a game trail from the 
hills down to the lake ” 

“ No good,” broke in Donoghue. “ He ain’t 
going to show himself.” 

So we passed on, and soon the way became more 
precipitous ; the underbrush cleared ; the trees 
thinned ; and in a jog trot we at last went rattling 
down the final incline and came right out with the 


176 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


impetus of that run upon the open ground around 
the lake, though of the lake itself, now that we were 
at its level, we could discern little — only tiny grey 
glimpses, so closely was it thronged about by rushes, 
and they so tall. 

A thousand frogs were singing, making quite a din 
in our ears, so pent in was the sound in that cup-like 
hollow. But weary as we were, we rejoiced to have 
come to our desired camp and soon were sitting fed 
and contented round the fire. 

Of all our camps so far this seemed to me the 
most secure. Consequently, it horrified me a little 
when Apache Kid remarked, taking his cigarette 
from his lips: 

‘‘Where do you think Canlan will be to-night?” 

Donoghue considered the burning log: 

“ Oh ! Allowing for him getting on to us pulling 
out, even the day after we left, and allowing for him 
starting out right then, he can’t be nigher here than a 
day’s journey, coming in to the country the way he 
would do it — over the shoulder of Mount Baker and 
in that ways.” 

“ He ’ll be over behind there, then,” said Apache, 
pointing ; “ right over that ridge, sitting by his lone- 
some camp and perhaps half a dozen fellows dogging 
him up too, eh? ” 

“Like enough,” said Donoghue; “but he’s ac- 
customed to bein’ dogged up.” 

“ Those who live in glass houses ...” remarked 


THE COMING OF MIKE CAN LAN 177 

Apache Kid, with a laugh that had no real merriment 
in the ring of it. 

Donoghue raised his eyes to Apache’s across the 
fire and laughed back. And they both seemed to 
fall into a reverie after these words. From their 
remarks I gathered that they believed that Canlan 
really knew the location of the mine. He had been 
simply waiting in Baker City, then, for fear of my two 
partners. So I sat silent and pondering. Presently 
Apache Kid snorted and seemed to fling the thoughts 
aside that had been occupying him. But anon he 
fell brooding again, biting on his lip and closing an 
eye to the glow. 

It was after one such long, meditative gazing into 
the glowing and leaping embers that he spoke to me, 
and with such a ring in his voice as caused me to 
look upon him with a new interest. The tone of the 
voice, it seemed to me, hinted at some deep thought. 

“Where do you come from, Francis?" he asked. 
“What is your nationality?" 

“ Why, I ’m a Cosmopolitan," said I, half smiling, 
as one is prone to do when a man asks him some 
trivial matter with a voice as serious as though he 
spoke of strange things. 

“ Yes ; we all are," said Apache Kid, putting aside 
my lightness. “But isn’t it Edinburgh you come 
from?" 

“ Yes,” said I. 

He mused again at my reply, plucking his finger- 
12 


178 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

knuckles, and then turned an eye to Donoghue, 
who was already surveying him under his watchful 
brows. 

“ Shall I tell him? ” he asked. 

“Tell him what?” said Donoghue, looking un- 
comfortable, I thought, as though this mood of his 
partner’s was one he did not relish. 

“ Tell him what we are — how we live — all that? ” 

From Apache to me and back again Donoghue 
glanced, and then : “ Oh ! tell, if you like,” said he. 
“ There won’t no harm come from telling him. He ’s 
safe. He ’s all right, is Francis.” 

Again there was a pause. 

“ Well,” said Apache Kid, finally, ending his rev- 
erie. “ The fact is that we — Donoghue and I — 
except upon occasion, when we want to make some 
sort of a character for ourselves, to show a visible 
means of support, — the fact is, we are ” 

“ Spit it out,” said Donoghue. “ Spit it out. It 
ain’t everybody has the courage to be.” 

I considered what was coming. 

“ The fact is,” said Apache Kid, “ we are what they 
call in this country road-agents — make our living by 
holding up stage-coaches and ” 

“ By gum ! we ’ve held up more nor stage-coaches,” 
cried Donoghue, and began fumbling in an inner 
pocket with eager fingers. 

“ And banks,” said Apache Kid, gazing on me to 
see the effect of this disclosure. 


THE COMING OF MIKE CAN LAN 179 

Donoghue stretched across to me, his loose face 
gleaming with a kind of joy. 

“Read that,” he said. “Read what that says;” 
and he handed me a long newspaper cutting. 

What I read on the cutting was : 

“ Daring Hold-Up of the Transcontinental. 

The Two-some Gang again at Work.” 

“ That 's us,” said Donoghue, gloating. “ It reads 
pretty good, but Apache here says there ain’t no 
sense in the headin’ about the two-some gang — says 
them journalist boys is no good. Seems to me a 
right slick notice — that ’s us, anyway.” 

Apache Kid seemed disturbed, annoyed. 

“Well! what do you think?” he said, fixing me 
with his eye. 

“ I ’m sorry,” said I. 

Donoghue threw back his head and laughed. 

“ It ’s not the right sort of way to live ? ” said 
Apache Kid, questioningly. “You know I can make 
out a fine case in its defence.” 

“ Yes,” I replied. “ I have no doubt you could, 
and that 's just what makes me all the more sorry 
to think of your doing this. Still, I feel that you 
having told me prevents me stating an opinion.” 

“ If someone else had told ” he began. 

“ Then I might speak,” said I. 

“ Should it not be the other way about?” he asked, 
half smiling. 


i8o THE LOST CABIN MINE 


“ Perhaps it should/’ said I. “ But if you honour 
me by telling me, it is enough for me just to say I 
am sorry. Would you have me preach?” 

He looked on me with great friendliness. 

“ I understand the sentiment,” said he. ‘‘ But I 
should like you to preach, if you wish.” 

“ Well,” said I, “ I have no doubt you could, with 
the brains you have and your turn for sophistry, 
make out a very entertaining defence for such a 
life. ‘Murder as a fine art/ you know ” 

“Murder?” asked Donoghue; but Apache Kid 
silenced him with a gesture, and I continued : 

“ But neither you nor those who heard your defence 
could treat it otherwise than as a piece of airy and 
misplaced, misdirected wit, on a par with your mis- 
placed love of adventure.” 

He nodded at that part, and his face cleared a 
little. 

“ That but makes me all the more sorry,” said I, 

“ to know you are ” I paused. “ A parasite ! ” 

I blurted out. 

“ Parasite ! ” he cried ; and his hand flew down to 
his holster, wavered, and fell soundless on his crossed 
legs. 

It was the first time he had looked on me in anger. 

“ What ’s parasite? ” asked Donoghue. 

“ A louse,” said Apache Kid. 

“ Hell ! ” drawled Donoghue, and glanced at me. 
“ You need lookin’ after.” 


THE COMING OF MIKE CANLAN i8i 


“ There are parasites and parasites,” said I. In 
this case it is more like these deer-lice we came by 
in the forest.” 

We had suffered from these, but I have not said 
anything of them, for the subject is not pleasant. 

“ Well,” drawled Donoghue. “ They are fighters, 
anyway, they are. You kind o’ respect them.” 

Apache Kid smiled. 

“ Yes,” he said, in a low voice, ** it ’s the right word, 
nevertheless.” 

Donoghue jeered. 

Waal ! Here 's where I come in ! Here 's the 
beauty of not being ediccated to big words nor what 
they mean, nor bein’ able to follow a high-toned talk 
except the way a man follows a poor-blazed trail.” 

Apache surveyed him with interest for a moment 
and then again turning to me he heaved a little sigh 
and said : 

“ I wonder if you would do something for me after 
we get through with this expedition? If I were to 
give you a little wad of bills, enough for a year’s holi- 
day at home, I wonder if you ’d go and take a squint 
at the house where my folks lived when I left home ; 
find out if they are still there, and if not, trace them 
up ? You ’d need to promise me not to let that senti- 
mental side of you run away with you. You ’d need 
to promise not to go and tell them I’m alive; for 
I ’m sure they have given me up for dead years ago 
and mourned the allotted space of time that men and 


i 82 the lost cabin MINE 

women mourn — and forgotten. It would only be 
opening fresh wounds to hear of me. They have 
grieved for my death ; I would not have them mourn 
for my life. But I — well, I sometimes wonder. You 
understand what I mean ” 

“ Watch your eye ! ” roared Donoghue. Watch 
your ” but a shot out of the forest sent him fly- 

ing along the ground, he having risen suddenly and 
stretched for his rifle. 

Instead of clutching it he went far beyond, 
ploughing the earth with his outstretched hands; 
and right on the first report came a second and 
Apache cried ; O ! ” 

He sagged down all in a heap, but I flung round 
for my revolver — the one with which I had had 
no practice. I heard the quick, dull plod of running 
feet and before I could get my finger on my weapon 
a voice was bellowing out : 

Don’t shoot, man ; don’t shoot ! It ’s Canlan ; 
Mike Canlan. You ain’t hostile to Mike Canlan.” 

I wheeled about, and there he was trailing his 
smoking rifle in his left hand and extending his right 
to me; Mike Canlan, little Mike Canlan with the 
beady eyes, the parchment-like, pock-marked face, 
and the boy’s body. 

Had my revolver been to hand, he had been a dead 
man, I verily believe — he or I. As it was, I leapt on 
him crying : 

“ Murderer ! Murderer ! ” 


THE COMING OF MIKE CAN LAN 183 

Down came my fist on his head and at the jar his 
rifle fell from his grasp. The next stroke took him 
on the lips, sending him backwards. I pounded him 
till my arms were weary, he lying there with his faded, 
pock-marked face and his colourless eyes dancing 
in pain and crying out: “Let up ! Let up, you fool ! 
We ain’t hostile. It 's Canlan ! ” he cried, between 
blows. “ Mike Canlan.” 

At last I did “ let up ” and stood back from him. 

He sat up and wiped the blood from his mouth 
and spat out a tooth. 

“Ah, lad,” he said. “ Here’s a fine way to repay 
me for savin’ your life. Think I could n’t have laid 
you out stark and stiff there aside them two? ” 

My gorge rose to hear him talk thus. 

“ Easy I could have done it,” he went on, “ but I 
didn’t. And why?” 

He sidled to me on his hams without attempting to 
rise, and held up a finger to me. 

“Why, lad, you saved my life once, so I spared 
yours this blessed night. That’s me, that’s Mike 
Canlan. And see here, lad, you and me now ” 

“ Silence ! ” I cried, drawing back from his touch, 
as he crept nearer. 

I had seen murder done, of the most horrible kind. 
I had seen a big-hearted, sparkling-eyed man, not 
yet in his prime, struck out of life in a moment. 
What he was telling me of himself was nothing to 
me now. I only knew that I had come to like him 


i 84 the lost cabin MINE 

and that he was gone — slain by this little, insignifi- 
cant creature that you could not call a man. And I 
had seen another man, whom I did not altogether 
hate, sent to as summary an end. I held this man 
who talked in the sing-song voice at my feet in 
horror, in loathing. I bent to feel the heart of 
Apache Kid, for I thought I saw a movement in his 
sun-browned neck, as of a vein throbbing and — 

“ O ! They ’re dead, dead and done with,” cried 
Canlan. If they was n’t, I ’d shove another shot into 
each of ’em just to make sure. But they ’re dead 
men, for Canlan killed ’em. If they was n’t, I ’d 
shove another shot into each of them ! ” 

The words rang in my ears with warning. I had 
just been on the point of trying to raise Apache Kid ; 
a cry of joy was almost on my lips to think that life 
was not extinct; but the words warned me and I 
turned about. 

“ He ’s dead, ain't he? ” said Canlan, and I lied to 
him. 

“ Yes,” I replied. He is dead, and as for 
you ” 

** As for me — nothing ! ” said Canlan, and he 
looked along his gleaming barrel at where my heart 
fluttered in my breast. 

“You and me,” said he, “has to come to terms 
right now. Oh ! I don’t disrespec’ you none for not 
takin’ kindly to this. I like you all the better for it. 
But think of what you ’ve fallen into all through me. 


THE COMING OF MIKE CAN LAN 185 

Here *s half shares in the Lost Cabin Mine for you 
now instead of a paltry third — half shares, my lad. 
How does that catch you ? ” 

I was not going to tell him the terms I was here on, 
but I said : 

“ Put down your rifle then, and let us talk it over.” 

“ Come, now, that ’s better,” said Canlan, cheerily ; 
but I noticed that a nerve in his left cheek kept 
twitching oddly as he spoke, and his head gave con- 
stant nervous jerks left and right, like a man shaking 
flies away from him, and he sniffed constantly, and I 
think was quite unaware that he did so. But I did 
not wonder at his nervousness after such a heinous 
deed as he had performed that evening. 


CHAPTER XVIIl 

^he Lost Cabin is Found 

OME, come,” said Canlan, suddenly, 
with an access of the facial twitching 
and another sudden jerking of his 
head. “ If them ’s your blankets, pack 
’em up and let ’s git out o’ this, back 
to my camp the other side of the lake.” 

I thought it as well to obey him, for if either of these 
men yet lived and should by any ill fortune emit as 
much as a moan, I knew that Canlan would make a 
speedy end then. If they lived, the best I could do 
for them was to leave them. 

And yet there was another thing that I might do — 
snatch up one of the revolvers and straightway mete 
out justice — no less — upon this murderer. 

But he was on the alert and shoved his Winchester 
against my neck as I stooped, tying my blanket-roll, 
with my eyes surreptitiously measuring the distance 
to the nearest weapon. 

“ See here,” he said, I can’t be runnin’ chances 
with you. I’ve let you off already, but I can’t be 
givin’ you chances to kill me now. Funny thing it 
would be for me to let you off for having saved my 
life once, and then you turn round and plug me now. 



THE LOST CABIN IS FOUND 187 


Eh? That would be a skin kind of a game to play 
on a man. If that ’s your gun layin’ there with the 
belt, you can buckle on the belt but keep your hands 
off the gun, or I gets tired o’ my kindness. See?” 

He snarled the last word at me, and over my 
shoulder I saw the leer on his grey face as he spoke. 
So I packed my blankets without more ado and 
buckled on my belt, with the revolver in its holtser 
hanging from it, and at Canlan’s suggestion took also 
a bag of flour with me. 

“ I guess there ain’t no call to see what them two 
has in their pockets by way of dough,” ^ said he. 

We don’t have no need for feelin’ in dead men’s 
pockets now — you and me,” and he winked and 
laughed a dry, crackling, nervous laugh, and stooped 
to lift a torch from our fire. 

With this raised in his hand he whirled about on 
me and said: “ Now remember, I trusts you,” and led 
off at a brisk pace from the trodden circle of the camp- 
fire. He had the tail of his eye on me, and I followed 
at once. 

We skirted the lake, keeping under the trees, the 
torch sending the twisted shadows flying before us 
and bringing them up behind ; and just at the bend 
of the lake I looked back at that camp, and it brought 
to my mind the similar, or almost similar, scene I had 
witnessed in the place of smouldering stumps behind 
Camp Kettle. 


1 Money. 


i88 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

We plodded round the north end of this little lake, 
and then a horse whinnied in the gloom, and, Here 
we are,” cried Canlan, and stooping, he thrust the 
torch into the embers of the fire he had evidently 
had there and trodden out suddenly. He kicked it 
together again, and soon the flames were leaping up 
vigorously. Then he turned and looked on me. 

Well,” said he, “ you and your friends must ha’ 
travelled pretty quick. Clever lads ! Clever lads ! 
Did you know that you was goin’ to try and spoil 
Mike Canlan’s game that day I gave you good-bye at 
Baker City? ” 

“ Not I,” I replied. “ I did not know then that 
you knew the secret.” 

“ Ah well, I did ! Clever lad Apache thought him- 
self, I guess, slinkin’ away down to Camp Kettle and 
cuttin’ in that ways. Well, I ain’t surprised he took 
that way. He knows it well. If all stories is true, 
he ’s played hide and seek in that same valley more 
nor once with gentlemen that had some desire for to 
settle accounts with him.” 

He blinked on me, and then sniffed twice, and 
suddenly pursed his lips and said : 

But that ain’t here nor there. Are you on to 
take my offer o’ half shares in this?” 

The whole man was still loathsome to me, and I 
cried out: 

“ No, no ! And would to Heaven I had never 
heard of this horrible and accursed quest.” 


THE LOST CABIN IS FOUND 189 


“ Well,” drawled Canlan, “ I ’m gettin’ some tired 
o’ havin’ no sleep nights for sittin’ listenin’ for fellers 
follerin’ me up. Not that they’d kill me in my sleep. 
I guess I ’m too precious like for that. I ’ve been 
keepin’ myself up on tanglefoot all the way in, but 
I did n’t bring nigh enough for them mountains, and 
it ’s give out. It ’s give out this last day and a night, 
and by jiminy, I ’m gettin’ them again. I feel ’em 
cornin’ on. It ain’t good for a man like me wantin’ 
my tonic. Say,” and his face twitched again, “ I ’m 
jest holdin’ myself together now by fair devil’s des- 
peration ; when I get to the end o’ this journey I ’m 

gettin’ some scared my brain-pan will jest ” he 

stopped abruptly and began on a fresh track : 
“ Well, it ’s natural, I guess, for you to feel bad to- 
night, you bein’ partners o’ them fellers so recent. 
But you’ll be better come morning. Say, if I lay 
down and sleep you won’t shoot me sleepin’, eh?” 

I won’t do that,” said 1. 

“ That ’s a bargain, then,” he cried, and before I 
could say another word he threw himself down beside 
the fire. 

He drew his hand over his brow and showed me it 
wet. 

That ’s for wantin’ the liquor,” he said. “ A man 
what don’t know the crave can’t understand it. I 
know what I need though. Sleep, — that ’s what I 
need ; and I ’m jest goin’ to force myself to sleep.” 

I made no reply, but looked on him as he lay, 


190 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

and perceived that his ghastly face was all clammy in 
the fire-sheen as he reclined in this attempt to steady 
his unstrung nerves. For me, I sat on, scarcely heed- 
ing the noises of the midnight forest I heard a mud- 
turtle ever and again, with that peculiar sound as of 
a pump being worked. That was a sound new to 
me then, but the other cries — of the wildcats and 
wolves — I heeded little. 

Once or twice I thought of taking a brand from the 
fire to light me round to the camp across the lake, 
that I might discover whether, indeed, both my friends 
were dead. But, as I turned over this thought of re- 
turn in my mind, Canlan brought down his arms again 
from above his head where they had lain relaxed, 
and, opening his eyes, rolled on his side and looked 
up at me. 

** Don’t you do it,” he said. 

“ Do what?” I inquired. 

** What you was thinkin’ of,” he replied. 

** And what was that ? ” 

“ You know,” he said, thickly and grimly, “ and I 
know. Two men alone in the mountains can’t ever 
hide their thoughts from each other. Mind you 
that! ” 

‘‘What was I thinking of doing, then?” I asked. 

“ That’s all right,” he said. “ You can’t blufif me.” 

‘‘Well, what then?” I cried, irritated. 

He sat up. 

‘‘You was thinkin’ of goin’ right off, right now. 


THE LOST CABIN IS FOUND 191 

No, it wasn’t to get in ahead of me at the Cabin 
Mine. I ’m beginnin’ to guess that Apache Kid 
did n’t let you know so much as that. But you was 
just feelin’ so sick and sorry like that you thought o’ 
gettin’ up quiet and takin’ my boss there and ” 

He was watching my face as he spoke, peering up 
at me and sniffing. With a kick he got the fire into 
a blaze, but without taking his eyes from me. Then, 
“ No, you was n’t thinkin’ that, either,” he said, in a 
voice as of disappointment that his power of mind- 
reading seemed at fault. 

“ Derned if I dew know what you was thinkin’,” he 
acknowledged. “ Oh, you ’re deeper than most,” he 
went on, “ but I ’ll get to know you yet. Yes, siree ; 
I ’ll see right through you yet.” 

He lay down after this vehement talk, as though 
exhausted, wiping the sweat from his brow where it 
gleamed in the little furrows of leathery skin. He 
was not a pretty man, I assure you. 

A feeling as of pride came over me to think that 
this evil man was willing to take my word that I 
would not meddle him in his sleep, as I saw him 
close his eyes once more, — this time really asleep, 
I think. 

But to attempt to return to Apache Kid’s camp I 
now was assured in my mind would be a folly. At a 
merest movement of mine Canlan might awaken, and 
if he suspected that I entertained a hope of at least 
one of my late companions being alive, he might him- 


192 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


self be shaken in his belief in the deadly accuracy of 
his aim. 

I pictured him waking to find me stealing away to 
Apache’s camp and stealthily following me up. I 
even pictured our arrival at the further shore — the 
still glowing fire, both my companions sitting up 
bleeding and dazed and trying to tend each other, 
Canlan marching up to them while they were still in 
that helpless predicament and blowing their brains 
from his Winchester’s mouth. So I sat still where I 
was and eventually dozed a little myself, till morning 
came to the tree-tops and slipped down into the 
valley and glowed down from the sky, and then Can- 
lan awoke fairly and stretched himself and yawned a 
deal and moaned, “ God, God, God ! ” — three times. 

And I thought to myself that this reptile of a man 
might well cry on God on waking that morning. 

Neither he nor I, each for our own reasons, ate any 
breakfast. My belongings I allowed him to pack on 
his horse with his own, so that I might not be bur- 
dened with them, the chance of a tussle with Canlan 
being still in my mind. Then, after we had extin- 
guished the fire, a thought came to me. It was when 
I saw that he was going to strike directly uphill 
through the forest that I scented an excuse to get 
back to my comrades. True, my hope that they 
lived was now pretty nigh at ebb, for I argued to 
myself that if life was in them, they would already 
have managed to follow us. Aye ! I believed that 


THE LOST CABIN IS FOUND 193 

either of them, supposing even that he could not 
stand, would have crawled along our trail at the first 
light of day, bent upon vengeance ; for I had learnt 
to know them both as desperate men — though to 
one of them, despite what I knew of his life, I had 
grown exceedingly attached. 

“ I ’ll go back to our old camp,” said I, “ and bring 
along an axe if you are going right up that way. We 
may need it to clear a way for the horse.” 

He wheeled about. 

“ Say ! ” he said. “ What are you so struck on 
goin’ back to your camp for. Guess I ’ll come with 
you and see jest what you want.” 

He looked me so keenly in the eye that I said at 
once, knowing that to object to his presence would 
be the worst attitude possible : “ Come, then,” and 
stepped out; but when he saw that I was not averse 
to his company he cried out : 

“ No, no. I have an axe here that will serve the 
turn if we need to do any cutting. But I reckon we 
won’t need to use an axe none. It’s up this here 
dry watercourse we go, and there won’t be much 
clearin’ wanted here.” 

It was now broad day, and as I turned to follow 
Canlan again I gave up my old friends for dead. 

The man’s short, broad back and childish legs, and 
the whole shape of him, seemed to combine to raise 
my gorge. 

“ I would be liker a man,” I thought, if I struck 
13 


194 "THE LOST CABIN MINE 

this reptile dead.” And the thought was scarce come 
into my mind and must, I think, have been glittering 
in my eyes, when he flashed around on me his colour- 
less face, and said he : 

Remember, I trust my life to you. I take it that 
you’ve agreed to my offer of last night to go half 
shares on this. God knows you ’ll have to look after 
me by nightfall, this blessed day — unless there’s 
maybe a tot o’ drink in that cabin.” 

At the thought he absolutely screamed: 

“ A tot o’ drink ! A tot o’ drink ! ” and away he 
went with a sign to me to follow, scrambling up the 
watercourse before his horse, which followed with 
plodding hoofs, head rising and falling doggedly, and 
long tail swishing left and right. I brought up the 
rear. And thus we climbed the greater part of the 
forenoon, with occasional rests to regain our wind, 
till at last we came out on the bald, shorn, last crest 
of the mountain. 

Canlan marched the pony side on to the hill to 
breathe ; and he himself, blowing the breath from him 
in gusts and sniffing a deal, pointed to the long, 
black hill-top stretching above us. 

“ A mountain o’ mud,” he said. That 's it right 
enough. Some folks thinks that everything that 
prospectors says they come across in the moun- 
tains is jest their demented imaginatings like; but I 
seen mountains o* mud before. There ’s a terror of 
a one in the Crow’s Nest Pass, away up the east 


THE LOST CABIN IS FOUND 195 


Kootenai; and there’s one in Colorado down to the 
Warm Springs country. You can feel it quiver un- 
der you when you walk on it — all same jelly. See 
— you see that black crest there ? That’s all mud. 
This here, where we are, is good enough earth 
though, all right, with rock into it. It’s here that we 
turn now. Let me see ” 

He took some fresh bearings, looking to the line 
of hills to the south-east. I thought I could pick 
out the notch at the summit, over there, through 
which Apache Kid, Donoghue, and I had come ; and 
then he led off again — along the hill this time, his 
head jerking terribly, and his whole body indeed, so 
that now and again he leapt up in little hopping steps 
like one afflicted with St. Vitus’ dance. 

Up a rib of the mountain, as it might be called, he 
marched, I now walking level with him ; for I must 
confess I was excited. 

And then I saw at last what I had journeyed so 
painfully and paid so cruelly to see, — a little 
shack,” or cabin, of untrimmed logs of the colour 
of the earth in which it stood, there, just a stone’s 
cast from us, between the rib on which we stood 
and the next rib that gave a sweeping contour to 
the hill and then broke off short, so that the moun- 
tain at that place went down in a sharp slope, 
climbed upon lower down by insignificant, scrubby 
trees. But there — there was the cabin, sure enough. 
There was our journey’s end. 


196 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

Canlan turned his ashen face to me, and his yel- 
low eyeballs glittered. 

** It looks as we were first,” he said, his voice 
going up at the end into a wavering cry and his 
lips twitching convulsively. 


CHAPTER XIX 

Canlan Hears Voices 


OU should have seen the way in which 
Canlan approached that solitary, 
deserted cabin. One might have 
thought, to see him, that he fully 
expected to find it occupied. 

“ Hullo, the shack,” he cried, leading his horse 
down from the rocky rib on which we had paused 
to view the goal of our journey. I noticed how 
the horse disapproved of this descent; standing 
with firm legs it clearly objected to Canlan’s lead- 
ing. The reins were over its head, and Canlan was 
a little way down the rib hauling on them, half- 
turned and cursing it vehemently. It could not 
have been the slope that troubled the animal, for 
that was trifling; but there it stood, dumbly rebel- 
lious, its neck stretched, but budge a foot it would 
not. 

At last it consented to descend, but very gingerly 
feeling every step with doubtful forefeet, and craned 
neck still straining against Canlan. Even when he 
succeeded in coaxing and commanding it to the 
descent it seemed very doubtful about going out 
on the hollow toward the shack, and reminded me. 



198 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


in the way it walked there, of a hen as you may see 
one coming out of a barn when the rain takes off. 

‘*What in thunder’s wrong with you?” cried Can- 
lan. ** Come along, will you ? Looks as if there 
was somebody, sure thing, in the shack. Hullo, 
the shack! Hullo, the cabin!” he hailed again. 

the shack ! Hullo, the cabin ! ” cried out 

the rib beyond, in an echo. 

So Canlan advanced on the cabin, his rifle loose 
on his arm, right up to the door on which he 
knocked, and from the sound of the knocking I 
declare I had an idea that the place was tenanted. 

He knocked again. 

“Sounds as if there was somebody in here,” he 
said, in a low, thick whisper, so that I thought he 
was afraid. 

He knocked again, rat-tat-tat, and sniffed twice, 
and piped up in his wheezy voice : “ Good day, 
sir ; here ’s two pilgrims come for shelter.” 

It was at his third rap, louder, more forcible on 
the door, which was a very rough affair, being 
three tree-stems cleft down the centre and bound 
together with cross-pieces, as I surmised, on the in- 
side, — just at the last dull knock of his knuckles 
that the door fell bodily inward, and a great flutter 
of dust arose inside the dark cabin. 

“Anyone there?” he asked, and then stepped 
boldly in. 

“Nobody here,” he said, bringing down his rifle 


CANLAN HEARS VOICES 


199 


with a clatter. “ One has to be careful approach- 
ing lonesome cabins far away from a settlement at 
all times.” 

Then suddenly he turned a puzzled face on me. 

Queer that, eh ? ” 

‘‘What?” 

“Why, that there door. Propped up from the 
inside. If there was any kind of a smell here apart 
from jest the or’nary smell of a log shanty, I ’d be 
opining that that there number three o’ this here 

push that worked the mine Say ! — ” he broke 

off, “where in thunder is the prospect itself?” 

And out he went of the mirk of the cabin, in a 
perfect twitter of nerves, and away across to the 
spur of which I told you. 

There I saw him from the door (by which the pack- 
horse stood quiet now, the reins trailing) kick his foot 
several times in the earth. Then he turned to see if 
I observed him, and flicking off his hat waved it round 
his head and came posting back. 

“ There ’s half a dozen logs flung across the shaft 
they sunk,” said he, “ and they’re covered over with 
dirt, to hide it like. Let ’s get in first and see what ’s 
what inside.” 

There was no flooring to the cabin and at one end 
was a charred place on the ground. Canlan looked 
up at the low roof there and, stretching up his hands, 
groped a little and then removed a sort of hatch in 
the roof. 


200 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


“ This here,” said he, *‘hes bin made fast from the 
inside too — jest like the door. Look in them bunks. 
Three bunks and nothin’ but blankets. And over 
the floor the blankets is layin’ too, hauled about.” 

The light from the hatch above was now streaming 
in. 

“ Them blankets is all chawed up,” he said. 

Heavens ! ” I gasped. “ Were they driven to 
that?” 

“What devils me,” he said, not replying to my 
remark but looking round the place with a kind of 
anxiety visible on his forehead, “ is this here fixin’ up 
from the inside. There ’s blankets, picks, shovels, 
all the outfit , and there 's the windlass and tackle for 
the shaft-head. No,” he said, recollecting my re- 
mark, “ them blankets was n’t chawed up by them. 
Rats has been in here — and thick. See all the sign 
o’ them there? ” 

He pointed to the floor, but it was then that I 
observed, in a corner, after the fashion of a three- 
cornered cupboard, a rough shelving that had been 
made there. Every shelf, I saw, was heaped up 
with something, — but what? I stepped nearer and 
scrutinised. 

“ Look at all the bones here,” I said. 

Canlan was at my side on the very words. 

“ That ’s him ! ” he said, in a gasp of relief. “ That ’s 
him. That’s number three. That’s him that stuck 
up the door and the smoke hole.” 


CANLAN HEARS VOICES 201 

I turned on him, the unspoken question in my face, 
I have no doubt. 

All the fear had departed from his face now as he 
snatched up a bone out of one of the shelves. 

These bones, I should say, were all placed as neatly 
and systematically as you could wish, built up in 
stacks, and all clear and clean as though they had 
been bleached. 

“ This here was his forearm,” said Canlan, his yel- 
low eyeballs suddenly afire with a fearsome light; 
and he rapped me over the knuckles with a human 
elbow. 

“ Ain’t it terrible? ” he said. 

‘‘ It is terrible,” said I. 

“Ah!” he cried. “But I don’t mean what you 
mean; I mean ain’t it terrible to think o’ that?” and 
he pointed to the cupboard, “ to think o’ cornin’ to 
that — bein’ picked clean like that — little bits o’ you 
runnin’ about all over them almighty hills inside the 
rats’ bellies and your bones piled away to turn yellow 
in a spidery cupboard.” 

I stepped back from his grinning face. 

“ But how do these bones come there?” I said. 

“ It ’s the rats,” he replied, “ them mountain rats 
always pile away the bones o’ everything they eat — 
make a reg’lar cache o’ them ; what for I dunno ; but 
they do ; that ’s all.” 

I stood then looking about the place, thinking of 
the end of that “ number three,” all the horror of his 


202 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

last hours in my mind ; and as I was thus employed, 
with absent mien, suddenly Canlan laid his hand on 
my arm. 

“ What you lookin’ that queer, strained ways for? ” 
he whispered, putting his face within an inch of mine, 
so that I stepped back from the near presence of 
him. “ That was a mighty queer look in your eyes 
right now. Say; do you know what you would 
make? You’d make an easy mark for me to mes- 
merise. You ’d make a fine medium, you would.” 

I looked at him more shrewdly now, thinking he 
was assuredly losing his last hold on reason ; but he 
flung back a step from me. 

“ O ! You think me mad? ” he cried, and verily he 
looked mad then. “Eh? Not me. You don’t think 
I can mesmerise you ? I ’ve mesmerised heaps — 
men too, let alone women,” and he grinned in a very 
disgusting fashion. “ Say ! If we could only see a 
jack-rabbit from the door o’ this shack, I 'd let you 
see what I could do. I ’d give you an example o’ my 
powers. I can bring a jack-rabbit to me, supposin’ 
he ’s lopin’ along a hillside and sees me. I jest looks 
at him and wills him to stop — and he stops. And 
then I wills him to come to me — and he comes. 
Mind once I was tellin’ the boys at the Molly Magee 
about bein’ able to do it and they put up the bets I 
could n’t — thought I was jest bluffin’ ’em, and I 
went right out o’ the bunkhouse a little ways and 
fetched a chipmunk clean off a rock where he was 


CANLAN HEARS VOICES 


203 


settin lookin’ at us, — there were n’t no jack-rabbits 
there, — fetched him right into my hand. And then a 
queer, mad feelin’ come over me — I can’t just tell 
you about it — I don’t just exactly understand it 
myself. I closes my hand on that chipmunk and jest 
crushed him dead atween my fingers. And suthin’ 
seemed kind o’ relieved here then, in the front o’ my 
head, right here. The boys never forgot that. They 
kind o’ lay away off from me after that — did n’t like 
it. Yes, I could mesmerise you.” 

He waved his hands suddenly before my eyes. 

**Feel any peculiar sensation at that?” he said. 

“ Yes,” said I. 

‘‘ What like? ” he asked. 

“ I feel that I ’ll not let you do it again,” said I. 

“ Scared like? Feel kind o’ slippin’ away?” 

No,” I said quietly; ‘‘not scared one little bit. 
But I object to your waving your hands within an 
inch of my face. Any man of grit would n’t allow it.” 

“ Well, well, say no more. We ’d better be inves- 
tigating this yere shack. God ! If there was only a 
drink on the premises. I tell you they We cornin’ on 
again, and when they come on I ’m fearsome — 
I am.” 

He looked round the place again and then cried 
out in a voice of agony: 

“ Look here ! I don’t want to lose holt o’ myself 
yet ; perhaps a little bit of grub now might help me. 
I reckon I might be able to shove some down my 


204 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


neck as a dooty. You go and make up the fire out- 
side, do.” 

He spoke this in a beseeching whine. To see the 
way the creature changed and veered about in his 
manner was interesting. 

“ We ain’t goin’ to sleep in here to-night, anyways, 
not for Jo, wi’ them mountain rats cornin’ in on us. 
It ’ll take quite a while o’ huntin’ to get all their holes 
filled up. You go and make dinner. I could do a 
flapjack and a slice o’ bacon, I think, with a bit o’ 
a struggle and some resolution like.” 

Anything that might prevent me having a madman 
on my hands in that wilderness was not to be ig- 
nored, so I went out and ran down the slope to where 
the bushes climbed, and gathered fuel, a great armful, 
and so came back again and made up a fire. 

Water was not so easy to find, but a muddy and 
boggy part of the hill led me to a spring, and I set to 
work on preparing food. 

With all this coming and going I must have been 
busied quite half an hour before even getting the 
length of mixing the dough. Canlan, by that time, 
had got the windlass out and had lugged it across 
to the covered shaft beside the spur of outcropping 
rock that ran down parallel with the ridge in the 
lee of which I had lit the fire. He went back to 
the cabin and carried out the coil of rope, and had 
just got that length in his employ when I called him 
over for our meal ; our evening meal it was, for, in- 


CANLAN HEARS VOICES 205 


tent on our labours, we had not noticed how the sun 
was departing. All the vasty world of hollows below 
us was brimmed with darkness. All the peaks and 
the mountain ridges marching one upon the other 
into the shadowing east were lit, toward us, with the 
last light when Canlan sat down to force himself to 
eat. But I saw he had difficulty in swallowing. The 
jerking of face and hands, I also perceived, was in- 
creasing past ignoring. So, too, presently became 
the fixed stare of his eye upon me as he sat with his 
hand frozen on a sudden half-way to his mouth. 

** Listen ! Don’t you hear nuthin’?” he asked, 
hoarse and low. 

“ Nothing,” said I. 

** Ah ! It ’s jest them fancies,” said he, and fell silent. 

Then again, with a strange, nervous twitch and 
truly awful eyes, he said in a whisper, “ Say, tell me 
true? Did n’t you hear suthin’ right now? ” 

I heard a coyote howl,” I said. 

“No, no; but somebody whispering?” he said. 
“ Two or three people all huddling close somewhere 
and tellin’ things about me. By gum ! I won’t have 
it! I dursent have it! ” he said in a low scream — 
which is the best description of his voice then that I 
can give you. 

I shuddered. He was a terrible companion to have 
here on this bleak, windy hillside, with the thin trees 
below us marching down in serried ranks to the 
thicker forest below, and the scarped peaks showing 


2o6 the lost cabin MINE 


against the pale moon that hung in the sky awaiting 
the sun’s going. 

I shook my head. 

‘‘ Sure? ” he asked. 

“ Positive,” said I. 

He bent toward me and said in a small voice, 
“ Keep your eye on me now. I ain’t goin’ to ask 
you another time, for I think when I speak they stop 
a-whispering ; but I’ll jest twitch up my thumb like 
this — see? — fer a signal to you when I hear ’em.” 

He sat hushed again; and then suddenly his eyes 
started and he raised his thumb, turning a face to me 
that glittered pale like lead. 

“ Now?” he gasped. 

“ Nothing,” I said ; ‘‘ not a sound.” 

“ Ah, but I spoke there,” he said. I ought n’t to 
have spoken; that scared ’em; and they quit the 
whispering when they hear me.” 

He sat again quiet, his head on the side, listening, 
and I watching his hand, thinking it best to humour 
him and to try to convince him out of this lunacy. 

But my blood ran chill as I sat, and his jaw fell 
suddenly in horror for a voice quavering and ghastly 
cried out from somewhere near by, Mike Canlan ! 
Mike Canlan ! I see you, Mike Canlan ! ” 

And a horrible burst of laughter that seemed to 
come from no earthly throat broke the silence, died 
away, and a long gust of wind whispered past us on 
the hill-crest. 


CANLAN HEARS VOICES 207 


It had been evident to me that though Canlan 
bade me hearken for the whispering voices that he 
himself did not actually believe in their existence. 
He had still sufficient sense left to know that the 
whispering was in his own fancy, the outcome of 
drink and of — I need not say his conscience, but — 
the knowledge that he had perpetrated some fear- 
some deeds in his day, deeds that it were better not 
to hear spoken in the sunlight or whispered in the 
dusk. 

But this cry, out of the growing night, real and 
weird, so far from restoring equanimity to his mind 
appeared to unhinge his mental faculties wholly. 
His eyeballs started in their sockets ; and there 
came the cry again: 

“ Mike Canlan ! Mike Canlan ! I ’m on your trail, 
Mike Canlan ! ” 

As for myself, I had no superstitious fears after the 
first cry, though I must confess that at the first 
demented cry my heart stood still in a brief, savage 
terror. But I speedily told myself that none but 
a mortal voice cried then; though truly the voice 
was like no mortal voice I had ever heard. 

It was otherwise with Canlan. Fear, abject fear, 
held him now and he turned his head all rigid like 
an automaton and, in a voice that sounded as though 
his tongue filled his mouth so that he could hardly 
speak, he mumbled : “ It ’s him. It 's Death ! ” 

Aye, it was death ; but not as Canlan imagined. 


2o8 the lost cabin MINE 


There was silence now, on the bleak, black hill, 
and though I had mastered the terror that gripped 
me on hearing the voice, the silence that followed 
was a thing more terrible, not to be borne without 
action. 

Then suddenly the voice broke out afresh quite 
close and Canlan turned his head stiffly again and 
I also looked up whence the voice came — and there 
was the face of Larry Donoghue looking down on 
us from the rib of rocky hill under whose shelter we 
sat. There was a trickle of blood, or a scar — it was 
doubtful which — from his temple down his long, 
spare jaw to the corner of the loose mouth ; the eyes 
stared down on us like the eyes of a dead man, blank 
and wide. 

He stretched out his arms and gripped in the 
declivity of the hill with his fingers, crooked like 
talons, and pulled himself forward; but at that tug 
he lost his balance, lying on his belly as he was, and 
came down the slope, sliding on his face, the kerchief 
still about his head as I had seen him when I thought 
he had breathed his last. 

In Canlan’s mind there was no question but that 
this was Larry Donoghue’s wraith. He tried to cry 
out and could not, gave one gulping gasp in his 
throat, and when Donoghue slid down the bank, as 
I have described, Canlan leapt to his feet and ran for 
it — ran without any intelligence, straight before him. 

I have told you that the next rib of rock broke off 


CANLAN HEARS VOICES 


209 


sheer and went down in a declivity. Thither Canlan’s 
terror took him ; and the last I saw of him was his 
legs straddled in the run, out in mid-air, as though to 
take another stride; and then down he went. But 
it was to Donoghue I turned and strove to raise him. 
For one fleeting moment he seemed to know me ; our 
eyes met and then the light of recognition passed out 
of his and he sank back. It was a dead man I held 
in my arms, and though I had never greatly cared for 
him, that last glance of his eye was so full of yearn- 
ing, so pathetic, so helpless that I felt a lump in my 
throat and a thickness at my heart and as I laid him 
back again I burst into a flood of tears that shook 
my whole frame. 

A strange, gusty sound in my ear and the feeling 
of a hot vapour on my neck brought me suddenly 
round in, if not fear, something akin to it. But I 
think absolute fear was pretty well a thing I should 
never know again after these occurrences. 

It was Canlan’s horse standing over me snuffing 
me; and when I raised my head he gave a quiet 
whinny and muzzled his white nose to me. Perhaps 
in his mute heart the horse knew that these sounds 
of mine bespoke suffering, and truly these pack- 
horses draw very close to men, in the hills. 

But though the horse brought me back in a way 
to manliness and calm it was a miserable night that 
I spent there. I sat up and with my chin in my 
hands remained gazing vacantly eastwards until the 
14 


210 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

morning broke in my eyes. And behind me stood 
the horse thus till morning, ever and again touching 
my shoulder with his wet nose, his warm breath puff- 
ing on my cheek. 

I was thankful, indeed, more than I can tell you, 
for that companionship. And now and then I put 
up my hand and when I did so the beast’s head 
would come gently down for me to clap his nose, 
and doing so I felt myself not altogether alone and 
friendless on that hill of terror and of death. 


CHAPTER XX 



Compensation 

'ROM where I sat on the frontage of 
that hill, the black, treeless mountain 
behind me, the hurly-burly of the 
scattered, out-cropping hills and tree- 
filled basins below me, as the sun 
came up in my face, my gaze was attracted to a bush 
upon the incline. 

This bush stood apart from the others on the hill, 
like an advance scout ; and as the sunlight streamed 
over the mountains I saw the branches of it agitated 
and a bird flew out, a bird about the size of a black- 
bird. I do not know its name, but it gave one of the 
strangest cries you ever heard — like this : 

“ Bob White ! Bob White ! Bobby White ! ” 

And away it flew with a rising and falling motion 
and down into the cup below, from where its cry 
came up again. 

It is difficult for me to tell you exactly what that 
bird meant to me then. My heart that was like a 
stone seemed cloven asunder on hearing that bird’s 
liquid cry. That there was something eerie in the 
sound of it, so like human speech, did in nowise 


212 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


affect me. To terror, to the weird, to the unknown 
I now was heedless. But at that bird’s cry my heart 
seemed just to break in sunder and I wept again, a 
weeping that relieved me much, so that when it was 
over I felt less miserable and heartsore. And I prayed 
a brief prayer as I had never prayed before, and was 
wondrously lightened after that; and turning to the 
horse, as men will do when alone, I spoke to it, caress- 
ing its nose and pulling its pricked ears. And then 
it occurred to me that if Donoghue had survived his 
wound, Apache Kid might still be alive. It had been 
for Apache, indeed, that I had entertained greater 
hope. 

Shall we go down to the valley and see if my 
friend still lives? ” I said, speaking to the horse; and 
just then the beast flung his head up from me and 
his eyeballs started. 

I looked in the direction of his fear — and there 
was Apache Kid and no other, climbing up from 
the direction of the bush whence the bird had flown 
away. 

I rushed down the rise upon him with outspread 
arms, and at our meeting embraced him in my relief 
and joy, and dragged him up to my fire, and had all 
my story of my doings of the night, the day, and the 
night told him, and of Donoghue and of Canlan — 
a rattling volley of talk, he listening quietly all the 
while, and smiling a little every time I broke in upon 
my tale with : “ You do not blame me, Apache? ” 


COMPENSATION 


213 


And then I asked him, all my own selfish heart 
being outpoured, how it was that I found him here 
alive. 

“ As for your accusations,” he said, ** dismiss them 
from your mind. In all you have told me I think 
you acted with great presence of mind and fore- 
thought. As for my escape from death, and Larry’s, 
it must have been due entirely to the condition of that 
reptile’s nerves, as you describe him to me.” 

He had been standing with his back to where Dono- 
ghue lay, and now in the light that took all that black 
hillside at a bound, I saw a sight that I shall never 
forget. For there, where should have been the dead 
man’s face, was nought but a skull, and perched upon 
the breast of the man and licking its chops, showing 
its front teeth, was one of the great mountain rats. 

Apache Kid followed the gaze of my eyes, looked 
at me again with that knitting of the brows, as in anger 
almost, or contempt. 

** Brace up ! ” he said sharply. 

“ Brace up ! ” I cried. “ Is it you who tell me to 
brace up, you who brought me into this hideous 
place, you who are to blame for all this ! I was a lad 
when you asked me to accompany you that day at 
Baker City — it feels like years ago. Now, now,” 
and I heard my voice breaking, “ now I am like a 
man whose life is blighted.” 

When I began my tirade he looked astonished at 
first, and then I thought it was a sneer that came 


214 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

upon his lips, but finally there was nothing but kind- 
liness visible. 

** I was only trying the rough method of pulling 
you together,” he said, “ and it seems it has suc- 
ceeded. Man, man, you have to thank me. Come,” 
and taking me by the arm and I unresisting, he led 
me to the cabin. 

It was curious how then I felt my legs weak under 
me, and all the hill was spinning round me in a grow- 
ing darkness. I felt my head sinking and heard my 
voice moan : ** Oh ! Apache, I am dying. This 
night has killed me ! ” and I repeated the words in a 
kind of moan, thinking myself foolish in a vague way, 
too, I remember, and wondering what Apache Kid 
would think of me. And then the darkness suddenly 
closed on me, a darkness in which I felt Apache Kid’s 
hands groping at my armpits, lifting me up, and then 
I seemed to fall away through utter blackness. 

When I came again from that darkness, I stretched 
out my hands and looked around. 

I had been dreaming, I suppose, or delirious and 
fevered, for I thought myself at home in the old 
country, imagined myself waking in the dark hours ; 
but only for a moment did that fancy obtain with me. 
All too soon I knew that I was lying in the Lost Cabin, 
but by the smell of the “ fir-feathers ” on which I lay, 
I knew that they were freshly gathered, and from the 
bottom of my heart I thanked Apache Kid for his 
forethought. For to have wakened in one of these 


COMPENSATION 


^15 

bunks would, I believe, have made me more fevered 
than I was already. It was night, or coming morning 
again. The hatch was off the roof, and through that 
hole a grey smoke mounted from a fire upon the 
earthen floor. The door was fastened up again. 

At my turning, Apache Kid came to me out of the 
shadows and bent over me ; but his face frightened 
me, for with the fever I had then on me it seemed 
a monstrous size, filling the whole room. I had sense 
enough to know from this that I was ill, and looking 
into that face which I knew my fever formed so 
hideously, I said: 

Oh, Apache Kid ! It would be better to die and 
have done with it." 

Nonsense, man," he said. “ Nonsense, man. 
There are so many things that you have to live 
for; " and he held up his left hand, the fingers 
seeming swollen to the size of puddings, and be- 
gan counting upon them. ** You have a lot of 
duties to perform to mankind before you can shuf- 
fle off. Shall I count some of them for you ? " And 
he put his right forefinger to the thumb of his left 
hand and turned to me as though to begin ; but he 
thought better of it, and then said he : 

I know you have a lot to do before you can 
shuffle off. But if you would perform these duties, 
you must calm yourself as best you can. ’ 

How long have I lain here? " I asked suddenly. 

Just since morning," said he. " A mere nothing. 


2i6 the lost cabin MINE 


man. After another sleep you will be better, and 
then we ” he paused then. 

** We will do what? ” I said. 

** We will get out of here and away home,” he said, 
and took my hand just as a woman might have done, 
and wiped my brow and kept smoothing my hair till 
I slept again. 

From this I woke to a sound of drumming, as of 
thousands of pattering feet. 

It was the rain on the roof. Rain trickled from it 
in many places, running down in pools upon the floor. 
The smoke hole was again covered, the fire out, but 
the door was open, and through it I had a glimpse 
of the hills, streaming with rain and mist. 

Apache Kid sat on one of the rough stools by the 
door, looking outward, and I called him. 

He came quick and eager at my cry. 

“ Better? ” he said. ** Aha ! That ’s what the rain 
does. And here 's the man that was going to die ! ” 
he rallied me. “ Here, have a sip of this. It is n’t 
sweet, but it will help you. I 've been rummaging.” 

“ What is it? ” I asked. 

** Just a little nip of cognac. They had that left, 
poor devils. It 's a wonder Canlan ” he con- 

tinued, and then stopped; doubtless I squirmed at 
the name. 

I took over the draught, and he sat down on the 
fir-boughs and talked as gaily as ever man talked. 
All the substance of his talk I have forgotten, only 


COMPENSATION 


217 

I remember how he heartened me. It was my deter- 
mination to fight the fever and sickness, that we had 
nothing in the way of medicines to cure, that he was 
trying to awaken. And I must say he managed it 
well. 

With surprise I found myself sitting up and smoking 
a cigarette while he sat back nursing a knee, laughing 
on me and saying: 

Smoking a cigarette ! A sick man ! Sitting up — 
and inhaling, too — and blowing through the nose — 
a sick man — why, the thing ’s absurd ! ” 

I looked and listened and smiled in return on 
him, and some thought came to me of what manner 
of man this was who ministered so kindly to me, 
and also of how near death’s door he himself had 
been. 

“How are you?” I asked. “Where was it you 
said you had been wounded ? I fear I was so sick 
and queer that I have forgotten everything but seeing 
you again.” 

“I?” he said. “Oh, I have just pulled myself 
together by sheer will-power. I have a hole in my 
side, filled up with resin. But that ’s a mere nothing. 
It ’ll hold till we get back to civilisation again, or else 
be healed by then. Thank goodness for our late 
friend’s shaky hand.” And at these words it struck 
me, thinking, I suppose, how narrowly Apache had 
missed death, that Canlan might be alive despite his 
fall. 


2i8 the lost cabin MINE 


Apache read the thought before I spoke. He 
nodded his head reassuringly, and said : 

'‘We are safe from him. He will trouble us no 
more. I have seen, to make sure.” 

“ I think I should be ashamed of myself,” said I, 
“for giving in like this.” 

“Nonsense,” said he. “You were sick enough 
last night, but you are all right now. Could you 
eat a thin, crisp pancake? — I won’t say flapjack. 
A thin, crisp pancake ? ” 

I thought I could, and found that he had a few 
ready against such a return to my normal. As I 
ate, he meditated. I could see that, though he spoke 
gaily enough, there was something on his mind. He 
looked at me several times, and then at last : “ Do 
you think you could stand bad news?” he asked.’ 

I looked up with inquiry. 

“ It ’s a fizzle, this ! ” he snapped ; and then he 
told me that sure enough the three original owners 
of the mine had “struck something.” But the ore, 
according to Apache Kid’s opinion of the samples 
lying in the cabin, was of such a quality that it would 
not repay anyone to work the place. 

“ O,” he said, “ if there was a smelter at the foot 
of the mountains, I don’t say it would n’t repay to rig 
up a bucket-tramway and plant; it’s not so very 
poor looking stuff ; but to make a waggon road, or 
even a pack-road, from here, say, to Kettle River Gap 
or even to Baker City and use the ordinary road 


COMPENSATION 


219 


there for the further transportation — no, it would n’t 
pay. We might hold this claim all our lives and the 
country might never open up this way while we 
lived ; and what would we be the better for it all ? ” 

It mattered little to me. My soul was sick of it all. 

** Of course, that ’s the black side,” he broke off. 
** Again, this valley might be opened up — other 
prospects put on the market — and down there in 
that valley you ’d live to see the smoke of a smelter 
smelting the ore of this little place of yours.” He 
paused again. “But I doubt it,” he said. 

“ So it ’s a fizzle ? ” I said half-heartedly. 

“Yes,” said he. “That is, practically a fizzle. As 
the country is at present it does n’t seem to me very 
hopeful. But of course I am one of those who 
believe in big profits and quick returns. It is per- 
haps scarcely necessary for me to tell you of that 
characteristic of mine, however, unless the excite- 
ment of your recent experience has caused you to 
forget the half-told story I was spinning to you when 
friend Canlan interrupted us. Man, how it does 
rain ! And this,” said he, looking up, “ is only a 
preamble. If I ’m not in error, we ’re going to have a 
fierce night to-night. The storm-king is marshalling 
his forces. He does n’t often do it here, but when he 
does he does it with a vengeance. I think our best 
plan is to get the holes in this roof tinkered. I see 
the gaps round about have been blocked up recently. 
Was it you did that? ” 


220 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


I told him that the tinkering was Canlan’s doing, 
to prevent an inroad of the rats, should we have slept 
in the place. 

‘‘ Thanks be unto Canlan," said he. ** We ’ll start 
on the roof.” 

At this task I assisted, standing on the wabbly 
stool and filling up the crevices. 

It was when thus employed that in a cranny near 
the eaves I saw a piece of what looked like gunny- 
sacking protruding and catching hold of it it came 
away in my hand and there was a great scattering to 
the floor — of yellow raindrops, you might have 
thought; but they fell with a dull sound. I looked 
upon them lying there. 

“What’s that?” I cried. But indeed I guessed 
what these dirty yellow things were. 

Apache Kid scooped up a handful and gave them 
but one glance. He was’ excited, I could see ; but 
it was when he most felt excitement that this man 
schooled himself the most. 

“ Francis,” said he, “ there is, as many great men 
have written, compensation in all things. I think 
our journey will not be such a folly after all.” 

“These are gold nuggets?” said I. “Our fortunes 

are ” and then I remembered that I had already 

received my wages and that none of this was mine. 
“ Your fortune is made,” said I, correcting myself. 

He smiled a queer little smile at my words. 

“Well,” he said, “if this indicates anything, my 


COMPENSATION 


221 


fortune is made in the only way I could ever make a 
fortune.” 

“ Indicates? ” I said. “ How do you mean? ” 

“ Pooh ! ” said he, turning the little, brass-looking 
peas in his hand. “These would hardly be called a 
fortune. Even a bagful of these such as you have 
unearthed don’t run to very much. There is more 
of this sort of stuff in our cabin,” said he. 

I was a little mystified. 

“ Search ! ” he said. “ Search ! That is enough 
for the present. If our labours are rewarded, then I 
will give you an outline of the manner and customs 
of the Genus Prospector — a queer, interesting race.” 

We thought little now of filling up the holes in 
that cabin. It was more a work of dismantling that 
we began upon, I probing all around the eaves, 
Apache Kid picking away with one of the miners’ 
picks, beginning systematically at one end of the 
cabin and working along. 

“Here,” I cried, “here is another,” for I had come 
upon just such another sack and quickly undid the 
string. 

“ Why, what is this ? ” said I. “ What are these ? ” 

He took the bag and examined a handful of the 
contents — the green and the blue stones. 

“ This,” said he, “ is another sign of the customs of 
these men. This was Jackson’s little lot, I expect; 
the man the Poorman boys picked up. Jackson was 
a long time in the Gila country.” 


222 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


“ But what are they ? ” I said. 

Why, turquoises,” replied Apache Kid. 

“ Turquoises in America ? ” I said. 

** Yes,” said he, and a good American turquoise 
can easily match your Persian variety.” 

He went over and sat down upon his stool. 

I don’t like this,” said he, disgustedly, and I 
waited his meaning. Fancy ! ” he cried, and then 
paused and said: Fancy? You don’t need to 

fancy! You see it here before you. When I say 
fancy ^ what I mean is this: Can you put yourself, 
by any effort of imagination, into the ego of a man 
who has a fortune in either of his boot-soles, a fortune 
in his belt, a fortune in the lining of his old overcoat, 
and yet goes on hunting about in the mountain seek- 
ing more wealth, grovelling about like a mole? Can 
you get in touch with such a man? Can you dis- 
cover in your soul the possibility of going and doing 
likewise? If you can, then you’re not the man I 
took you for.” 

They did n’t get these turquoises here, then?” I 
said. 

** Oh, no ! I don’t suppose that there is such a thing 
as a turquoise in this whole territory. Don’t you 
see, we’ve struck these fellows’ banking accounts? 
Did you ever hear of a prospector putting his whole 
funds in a bank ? Never ! He ’ll trust the bank with 
enough for a rainy day. The only thing that he ’ll 
do with his whole funds is to go in for some big 


COMPENSATION 


223 


gamble, such as the Frisco Lottery that put thou- 
sands of such old moles on their beam ends. In a 
gamble he ’ll stake his all, down to his pack-horse. 
But he does n’t like the idea of putting out his wealth 
for quiet, circumspect, two-a-half per cent interest. 
He ’d rather carry it in his boot-soles than do that 
any day.” 

Up he got thei^, and really I must leave it to you 
to decide how much was pose, how much was actual 
in Apache Kid, when he said : 

“ I think we had better continue our search, how- 
ever, not so much for the further wealth we may find 
as to satisfy curiosity. It would be interesting to 
know just how much wealth these fellows would n’t 
trust the banks with. Let us continue this interesting 
and instructive search.” 

For my part, I, who heard the ring in his voice 
as he spoke, think he was really greatly excited, and 
to talk thus calmly was just his way. 


CHAPTER XXI 

Re-enter — ^I’he Sheriff of Baker City 

ARDON the question,” said Apache 
Kid, looking on me across the hoard, 
he sitting cross-legged upon one side, 
I sprawled upon the other, “but do 
you feel no slightest desire stealing in 
upon you to possess this all for yourself ? ” 

I stared at him in astonishment, so serious he was. 

“It does not even enter your head to regret my 
return from the dead ? ” 

“ Apache ! ” I exclaimed. 

He chuckled to himself. 

“ I fear,” said he, “ that you are of too refined a 
nature for this hard world. I predict that before you 
come to the age of thirty you will be aweary of its 
cruelty — always understanding when I say world 
that I mean the men in the world. I have to thank 
you for not suggesting that that was the way in which 
I used the word. It wearies me to have the obvious 
always iterated in my ears. So you feel no hanker- 
ings to see me dead ? ” 

I made no reply, and he chuckled again and then 
looked upon our trove. 



THE SHERIFF OF BAKER CITY 225 


We made certain we had found it all — the first bag 
of small nuggets of which I told you, the bag of tur- 
quoises, two more bags of larger nuggets, and three 
separate rolls of dollar and five-dollar bills. The bills 
amounted to a hundred and fifty dollars — a mere 
drop in the bucket, as Apache said. It was the two 
bags of larger nuggets and the bag of turquoises that 
were the real ** trove,” but Apache Kid would not 
hazard a guess of their value. All that he would say 
then, as he weighed them in his palm, was : You 
are safe, Francis — you need no more run with the 
pack.” I did not at the moment understand his use 
of the word pack,” but his next words explained 
it. 

The only way,” said he slowly, rolling a cigarette 
with the last thin dust of tobacco that remained in 
his pouch, so that he had to shake it over his hand 
carefully, **the only way that I can see to prevent 
that world-weariness coming over you is for you to 
acquire a sufficiency to live upon, a sufficiency that 
shall make it unnecessary for you to accept the laws 
of the pack and rend and tear and practise cunning. 
I think, considering such a temperament as yours, 
I should call off with our old bargain and strike a 
new one with you — half shares.” 

I heaved a deep sigh. I saw myself returning 
home — and that right speedily — I saw already the 
blue sea break in white foam on the ultimate rocks 
of Ireland, the landing at Liverpool, the train journey 

15 


226 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

north, the clean streets of my own town through which 
I hastened — home. 

“ Ah, these castles,” said Apache Kid, after a 
pause which I suppose was very brief, for such 
thoughts move quickly in the mind. “ They can all 
be built now.” 

Then he leant forward ; and he was truly serious 
as he looked on me. 

“ But one thing you will do in return,” he said, and 
it was as the sign of an agony that I saw on his face. 
‘‘You will do that little bit of business for me that 
I asked you once before?” 

He paused, hearkening ; and I too was on the alert. 
The squelching of a horse’s hoofs was audible without. 

“ Our pack-pony,” said I ; “it has come down for 
shelter, I expect.” 

He rose and walked to the door. 

“ Chuck that stuff under your bed ! ” said he, 
suddenly. 

I made haste, with agitated hands, to carry out the 
order, and as I bent to my task I heard a voice that 
seemed familiar say : 

“ Apache Kid, I arrest you in the name of ” 

The remainder I lost, for Apache Kid’s cheery 
voice broke in : 

“Well, well. Sheriff — this is an unexpected pleas- 
ure ! Come in, sir ; come in ; though I fear we can 
offer but slender ” 

“ All right,” I heard the sheriff say. “ Glad to see 


THE SHERIFF OF BAKER CITY 227 


you take it so well.” And with a heavy tramp en- 
tered the sheriff of Baker City, booted and spurred 
and the rain running in a cascade from his hat, the 
brim of which was turned down all around. 

** Donoghue,” he said, “ Larry Donoghue, I arrest 
you in — Say ! Where *s Donoghue, and what are 
you doin’ here, you, sir? ” 

This latter was of course to me. 

“ Donoghue you can never get now,” said Apache 
Kid. “He will be saved the trouble of putting up 
a defence. But won’t you bring in your men?” 

“ Is that your boss along there on the hill under 
that big tree?” said the sheriff. 

“ That,” said Apache Kid, “ was Canlan’s horse, 
I believe.” 

The sheriff hummed to himself. 

“So,” he said quietly, “just so. There ain’t any 
chance o’ Canlan dropping in here, is there?” 

“ None whatever,” said Apache Kid, calmly. 

“ So,” said the sheriff. “ Well, I guess them pinto 
broncs of ours can do very well under that tree. 
That bronc of Canlan’s seemed some lonesome. 
Seemed kind o’ chirped up to see others o’ his 
species. They ’ll do very well there till we get dried 
a bit.” 

He looked again at me and shook his head mourn- 
fully. 

“ You look kind of sick,” he said, “ but it ’s all right 
Don’t worry. You ’ll only be in as a witness. 


228 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


“ Witness for what? ” I asked. 

Murder of Mr. Pinkerton, proprietor of the Half- 
Way House to Camp Kettle.” 

Apache interrupted : 

“ Do you happen to have such a thing as quinine 
about you, Sheriff? ” 

** Sure,” said the sheriff ; “ always carry it in the 
hills.” 

“ Give my friend a capsule,” he said, and defer 
all this talk.” 

“ Murder of Mr. Pinkerton ! ” I cried ; but just 
then the sheriff stooped and lifted a slip of paper 
from the floor. 

“ Literature ! ” he said. ** Keepsake /fome or 
what? ” 

Then I noticed his firm, kindly eyebrows lift. He 
turned to Apache Kid. 

“ This,” he said, ” seems to have fallen out your 
press-cuttin’ book. I see in a paper the other day 
where they supply press-cuttin’s to piano wallopers 
and barn-stormers and what not. You should try 
one o’ them. I disremember the fee ; but it was n’t 
nothing very deadly.” 

Then I knew what the cutting was that had come 
into his possession. It was the cutting Larry Don- 
oghue had shown me in his childish, ignorant pride, 
the account of the “ hold-up ” by “ the two-some 
gang.” I must have thrust it absently into my 
pocket, hardly knowing what I was doing, when 


THE SHERIFF OF BAKER CITT 229 

Canlan’s shot interrupted the unusual conversation 
of that terrible camp. 

The sheriff hummed over it. 

“ Kind o’ lurid, this,” he said ; and at that comment 
Apache Kid’s face became radiant in a flash. 

“ Sir,” he said, “ I am charmed to know you. You 
are a man of taste. I always object to the way these 
things are recounted.” 

The sheriff rolled his bright eye on Apache, mis- 
understanding his pleasure which, though it sounded 
something exaggerated, was assuredly genuine enough. 

I guess the way it ’s told don’t alter the fact that 
in the main it ’s true. It would mean a term of years, 
you know.” 

For the first time in my knowledge of him Apache 
Kid’s face showed that he had been hit. He gave a 
frown, and said: 

“Yes, that’s the ugly side of it; that ’s the reality. 
It must be an adventurous sort of life, the life por- 
trayed in that cutting. I fancy that it is the adven- 
turing, and not the money-getting, that lures anyone 
into it, and a man who loves adventure would natu- 
rally resent a prison cell.” 

The sheriff, with lowered head and blank eyes, 
gazed from under his brows on Apache Kid. 

“ I guess it ’s sheer laziness, sir,” said he, “ and the 
man who likes that ways of living, and follows it up, 
is liable to stretch hemp ! ” 

“That would be better, I should fancy, than the 


230 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

prison cell,” said Apache Kid. “ The fellows told 
about there would prefer that, I should think.” 

The sheriff made no answer, but turned to the door 
and bade his men unharness the pintos and come in. 

** You there. Slim,” said he to one of the two ; 
“ you take possession o’ them firearms laying there. 
But you can let the gentlemen have their belts.” 

Apache Kid was already kindling the fire. The 
rain had taken off a little, and before sunset there 
was light, a watery light on the wet wilderness. So 
the hatch was flung off and supper was cooked for 
all. The sheriff and these two men of his — one an 
Indian tracker, the other (*‘ Slim ”) a long-nosed fel- 
low with steely glints in his eyes and jaws working 
on a quid of tobacco when they were not chewing 
the flapjack — made themselves at home at once. 
And it astounded me, after the first few words were 
over, to find how the talk arose on all manner of sub- 
jects, — horses, brands, trails, the relative uses and 
value of rifles, bears and their moody, uncertain 
habits, wildcats and their ways. Even the Paris 
Exposition, somehow or other, was mentioned, I re- 
member, and the long-nosed, sheriff’s man looked at 
Apache Kid. 

I think I seen you there,” said he. 

Likely enough,” said Apache Kid, unconcernedly. 

‘‘What was you blowing in that trip?” asked the 
long-nosed fellow, with what to me seemed distinctly 
admiration in his manner. 


THE SHERIFF OF BAKER CITT 231 


Apache looked from him to the sheriff. They 
seemed all to understand one another very well, and 
a cynical and half-kindly smile went round. The 
Indian, too, I noticed, — though he very probably 
had only a hazy idea of the talk, — looked long and 
frequently at Apache Kid, with something of the 
gaze that a very intelligent dog bestows on a vene- 
rated master, his intuition serving him where his 
knowledge of English and of white men’s affairs were 
lacking. 

They talked, also, about the ore that had gathered 
us all together there, and Apache Kid showed the 
sheriff a sample of it, and listened to his opinion, 
which ratified his own. 

On the sheriff handing back the sample to Apache 
Kid the latter held it out to the assistant with the bow 
and inclination that you see in drawing-rooms at 
home when a photograph or some curio is being 
examined. 

There was a quiet courtesy among these men that 
reminded me of what Apache Kid had said regarding 
Carlyle’s remark on the manners of the backwoods. 
And it was very droll to note it : Apache in his shirt 
and belt, and the long-nose — I never heard him 
called but by his sobriquet of “ Slim ” — opposite 
him, cross-legged, with his hat on the back of his 
head and his chin in the palm of his hand, the elbow 
in his lap, at the side of which stuck out the butt of 
his Colt, the holster-flap hanging open. 


232 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

“ I know nothing about mineral/* said Slim, in his 
drawl. “ I 'm from the plains.’* 

Apache Kid handed the ore over to the Indian, 
who took it dumbly, and turned it over, but with 
heedless eyes ; and he presently laid it down beside 
him, and then sat quiet again, looking on and listen- 
ing. Never a word he said except when, each time 
he finished a cigarette and threw the end into the 
fire, the sheriff with a glance would throw him his 
pouch and cigarette papers. The dusky fingers would 
roll the cigarette, the thin lips would gingerly wet it, 
and then the pouch was handed back with the papers 
sticking in it, the sheriff holding out a hand, without 
looking, to receive it. And on each of these occa- 
sions — about a dozen in the course of an hour — the 
Indian opened his lips and grunted, “ Thank.” 

Then the conversation dwindled, and the sheriff 
voiced a desire to see down that there hole myself.” 

The Indian had risen and gone out a little before 
this, and just as the sheriff rose he appeared at the 
door again, and looking in he remarked : 

” Bad night come along down,” and he pointed to 
the sky. 

” Oh ! ** said the sheriff, ** bad night? ” 

” Es, a bad mountain dis,” said the Indian. ‘‘ No 
good come here.” 

“ You would n’t come here yourself, eh ? ** said the 
sheriff, smiling, but you could see he was not the 
man to ignore any word he heard. He was wont to 


THE SHERIFF OF BAKER CITY 233 

listen to everything and weigh all that he heard in 
his mind, and take what he thought fit from what he 
heard, like one winnowing a harvest. 

“ No, no ! ” said the Indian, emphatically. “ I 
think — a no good stop over here. Only a dam fool 
white man. White man no care. A heap a bad 
mountain,” he ended solemnly. 

** Devils? ” inquired the sheriff. Bad spirits, 
may be?” and he looked as serious as though he 
believed in all manner of evil spirits himself. 

The Indian seemed almost bashful now. 

“ O ! I dono devil,” he said, and then after thinking 
he decided to acknowledge his belief. ** Ees,” he 
said, and he looked more shy than ever, ** maybe bad 
spirit you laugh. Bad mountain, all same, devil o’ no 
devil.” 

“ And what ’s like wrong with the mountain ? ” 

He go away some day.” 

** Mud-slide, eh? ” asked Apache Kid. 

The Indian nodded. 

O I Heap big mud-slide,” he said. “ You come 
a look.” 

We all trooped on his heels, and then he led us 
to the gable of the shanty and pointed up to the 
summit. 

“ Good preserve us,” said Slim. 

“ Alle same crack,” said the Indian. “ Too much 
dry. Gumbo ^ all right; vely bad for stick when 

1 A sticky soil common in these parts. 


234 the lost cabin MINE 


rain come ; he hold together in dry ; keep wet long 
time — all same chewing gum,” he added with 
brilliancy. 

But this ain’t like chewin’ gum, heh? ” said 
the sheriff, following the drift of the Indian’s pidgin 
English. 

“Nosiree,” said the Indian, ‘^no hold together, 
come away plop, thick.” 

“ It ’s a durned fine picture he ’s drawin’,” said 
Slim. ** I can kind o’ see it, though. ‘ Plop,’ he 
says. I can kind o’ hear that plop.” 

Along the hill above us, sure enough, we could see 
a long gash running a great part of the hill near the 
summit, in the black frontage of it. 

‘‘ Well,” said the sheriff, “ I should n’t like to be 
under a mud-slide. But you ’d think that them two 
ribs here would hold the face o’ this hill together, 
would n’t you ? ” 

He looked up at the sky ; sunset seemed a thought 
quicker than usual, and there were great, heavy clouds 
crawling up again, as last night, from behind the 
mountains. 

Apache Kid had said not a word so far, but now 
he spoke. 

“ I ’ve seen a few mud-slides in my time. Sheriff,” 
he said ; “ but this one would be a colossal affair. 
Might I ask you a question before I offer advice? ” 

** Sure,” said the sheriff, wonderingly. 

Is it only the charge of murdering Mr. Pinkerton 


THE SHERIFF OF BAKER CITT 235 

that you want me for, or would you try to make a 
further name for your smartness by using that clew 
you got about the two-some gang — not to put too 
fine a point upon it? ” 

You would have thought the sheriff had a real lik- 
ing for Apache Kid the way he looked at him then. 

He took the cutting from his sleeve, and tore it up 
and trampled it into the wet earth. 

“ I guess the hangin’ will do you, without anything 
else,” said he ; from which, of course, one could not 
exactly gauge his inmost thoughts. But sheriffs study 
that art. They learn to be ever genial, without ever 
permitting the familiarity that breeds contempt — 
genial and stern. 

“ In that case,” said Apache Kid, ** I would suggest 
leaving this cabin right away. I want to clear myself 
of that charge ; and if that crack widened during the 
night, I might never be able to do that.” 


CHAPTER XXII 

^he Mud-Slide 



>ROM our scrutiny of the mountain 
above us the sheriff turned aside. 

“ If we have to leave here, I reckon 
I just have a look at that hole o’ theirs 
and see what like it is to my mind,” 
said he, “ with all due respect to your judgment, sir,” 
(this to Apache Kid) “ and out of a kind o’ curiosity.” 

He bade the Indian go with him to tend the wind- 
lass and Apache Kid and I returned to the cabin. 
Slim following ostentatiously at our heels, and re- 
maining at the door watching the sheriff. 

I plucked my friend by the sleeve. This was the 
first opportunity we had had for private speech since 
the sheriff’s arrival. 

“Apache,” I said, “what is the meaning of this 
arrest? Is it the half-breed that came with Mr. Pink- 
erton who has garbled the tale of his death for some 
reason?” 

He shook his head. 

“ No,” said he, “ not the half-breed. I ’ll wager it is 
some of Farrell’s gang that are at the bottom of it.” 

“ But they,” I began, “ they were all ” and I 

stopped on the word. 


THE MUDSLIDE 


237 


“Wiped out?” he said. “True; but you forget 
Pete, the timid villain.” 

“ But he,” I said, “ he was away long before that 
affair of poor Mr. Pinkerton.” 

“ Yes, but doubtless the Indian made up on him, 
and whether they talked or not Pete could draw his 
conclusions. And a man like Pete, one of your 
coyote order of bad men, would just sit down and 
plot and plan ” 

“ But even then,” I said, “ they can’t prove a thing 
that never occurred ; they can’t prove that you did 
what you never did.” 

He looked at me with lenient, sidewise eyes, not 
turning his head, and then pursed his lips and gazed 
before him again at the door, where Slim’s long back 
loomed against the storm-darkened sky. 

“ All this,” said he, “ is guesswork, of course ; for 
the sheriff is reticent and so am I. But as for prov- 
ing, I dare say Pete could get a crony or two to- 
gether to swear they saw me. O ! But let this 
drop,” he broke out. “ If there ’s anything that 
makes me sick now, it ’s building up fabrications. Let 
us look on the bright side. Gather together your 
belongings and thank Providence for sending us the 
convoy of the sheriff to see us safely back to civilisa- 
tion with our loot.” 

“ You ’re a brave man,” I said. But he did not 
seem to hear. 

“ What vexes me,” said he, “ is to think that Miss 


238 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


Pinkerton may have heard this yarn and placed cre- 
dence in it.” 

The entrance of the sheriff, with a serious face, put 
an end to the conversation then. 

“ Well,” said Apache Kid, “ what do you think? ” 

“ I think this is a derned peculiar mountain,” said 
the sheriff, “ and I reckon you boys had better pack 
your truck. That hole 's full.” 

“Water?” said Apache Kid. 

“No,” said the sheriff; “full of mountain. You 
can see the upward side of it jest sliding down bodily 
in the hole, props and all. They must ha’ had some 
difeeculty in it, the way they had it wedged. You 
noticed? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“Well, it’s just closed up now, plumb. Went to- 
gether with a suck, like this yere,” and he imitated it 
with his mouth. “ Reckon we better get ready to 

pull out, if needs be. What in thunder ” he 

broke off. 

Apache Kid, Slim, and the sheriff looked at each 
other. You should have heard the sound. It was like 
the sound of one tearing through a web of cloth — a 
giant tearing a giant’s web and it of silk. 

“ The horses ! ” the sheriff cried ; but the Indian 
had already gone. “ How about yours, young 
feller?” 

I made for the door to follow the Indian and catch 
the horses, out onto the hillside — and saw only half 


THE MUDSLIDE 


239 


the valley. The other half was hid behind the wall 
of rain that bore down on us. 

The Indian was ahead of me, scudding along to 
where the lone pine stood; but the terrified horses 
saw us coming and ran to meet us, quivering and 
sweating. 

Then the rain smote us and knocked the breath 
clean out of me. I had heard of such onslaughts but 
had hardly credited those who told of them. I might 
have asked pardon then for my unbelief. I was sent 
flying on the hillside and was like a cloth drawn 
through water before I could get to my feet again. 
The Indian was scarcely visible, nor his three horses. 
I saw him prone one moment, and again I saw him 
trying to hold them together as he — how shall I de- 
scribe it? — lay aslant upon the gale. I succeeded in 
quieting my beast, and then turned and signed to 
him that I would lead one of his beasts also, for when 
I opened my mouth to speak, he being windward of 
me, the gust of the gale blew clean into my lungs so 
that I had to whirl about and with lowered head gasp 
out the breath and steady myself. But he signed to 
me to go, and nodded his head in reassurance; 
though what he cried to me went past my ear in an 
incomprehensible yell. 

Thus, staggering and swaying, we won back to the 
rib beside the cabin, but this we could scarcely mount. 
So the Indian, coming level with me, stretched his 
hand and signed that he would hold my pack-horse 


240 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


with his own. I saw the sheriff battling with the 
gale and the dim forms of Apache Kid and Slim a 
little ahead of him, Slim and Apache Kid weighted 
greatly down. How we ever succeeded in getting the 
saddles on the horses seemed a mystery. But the 
beasts themselves were in a state of collapse with 
terror. I dare say they would have stampeded had 
there been any place to stampede to ; but there was 
no place. For a good five minutes you might have 
thought we were hauling on saddles and drawing up 
straps and cinches on the bed of a lake that had a 
terrible undercurrent in it. Then the first onslaught 
passed and we saw the hill clear for a moment, but 
still lashed with hail, so that our hands were stiff and 
numb. The sheriff and Apache Kid were floundering 
back to the cabin, and it was then that the catastrophe 
that the Indian had feared took place. Mercifully, 
it was not so sudden as an avalanche of snow ; for, at 
the united yell of the three of us who cowered there 
with the beasts, the sheriff and Apache Kid looked 
up at the toppling mountain. Aye, toppling is the 
word for it. The lower rim of the chasm I told you 
of was falling over and spreading down the surface of 
the hill. It was a slow enough progress to begin with, 
and the two men seemed to waver and consider the 
possibility of again reaching the cabin. Then they 
saw what we beheld also — the whole face of the 
mountain below the chasm sagged forward. It looked 
as though there was a steadfast rib along the top ; but 


THE MUDSLIDE 


241 


barely had they gained the rocky part where we stood, 
than that apparent backbone collapsed upon the lower 
part, and, I suppose with the shock of the impact on 
the rest, completed the mischief. The sound of it 
was scarce louder than the hiss of the rain, a multi- 
tude of soft bubblings and squelchings. But if there 
was with this fall no sound as when a rock falls, it was 
none the less awful to behold. 

We saw the mountain slide bodily forward, and the 
one thought must have flashed into all our minds at 
once, “ If this rock on which we stand is not a rib of 
the hill, but is simply imbedded in that mud mountain, 
we are lost.” 

That of course could scarcely be, but nevertheless 
we all turned and fled along the ridge, horses and 
men, and, as we looked over our shoulders, there was 
the farther spur of rock, which had attracted the three 
prospectors, slipping forward and down, whelmed in 
the slide. The rest was too sudden to describe 
rightly. A great crashing of trees and a rumbling, 
now of rocks, came up from the lower valley, and the 
mountain absolutely subsided in the centre and went 
slithering down. We posted along the face of the 
hill here to the south, I think each of us expecting 
any moment to feel the ground fail under him. But 
at last we gained the hard, rocky summit of a ridge 
that ran edgewise into that black mountain. There 
we paused and looked back. 

There was now a dip in the ridge, where before had 
16 


242 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


been an eminence; and farther along, where a new 
precipice had been made by this fall, we saw (where 
the rain drove) huge pieces of earth loosen and fall, 
one after the other, upon the blackness below. But 
these droppings were just as the last shots after a 
battle, and might keep on a long while, sometimes 
greater, sometimes less, but never anything to com- 
pare with the first fall. 

But we could not remain there. A fresh bending 
over of the tree-tops, like fishing-rods when the trout 
runs, a fresh flurry of wind, and a sudden assault of 
hail sent us from that storm-fronting height to seek 
shelter below. 

One would have thought that there could be no dry 
inch of ground in all the world ; the hills were spout- 
ing foaming torrents, and in our flight, as we passed 
the place up which Canlan and I had come, I saw the 
watercourse no longer dry, but a turbulent rush of 
waters. 

It was farther along the hill, so anxious were we to 
pass beyond the possibility of any further crumbling, 
that we made a descent. Our faces were bruised 
with the hail and we were stiff with cold, when at last 
we came to what you might call an islet in the storm. 

The hill itself, quite apart from its watercourses, 
was all a-trickle and a-whisper with water, but here 
was a little rise where the water went draining around 
on either side, and in the centre of the rise a monster 
fir-tree, the lowest branches about a dozen feet from 


THE MUDSLIDE 243 

the ground which all around the tree was dust-dry, 
so thick were the branches overhead. 

Under this natural roof we sheltered ; here we built 
our fire, dried ourselves, and cooked and ate the meal 
of which we stood so greatly in need ; and after that 
we sat and hearkened, with a subdued gladness and 
a kind of peaceful excitement in our breasts, to the 
voices of the storm — the trailing of the rain, the cry 
of the wind, and the falling of trees. 

So we spent the night, only an occasional rain- 
drop hissing in our little fire or blistering in the 
dust. But by morning the itching of the ants had 
us all early awake. It was in a pause in the break- 
fast preparations that Slim remarked: 

Well, I guess anybody that wants that there ore 
now will find it in bits strewed about the valley. It 
won’t need no crushing before it gets smelted.” 

“Yes,” said the sheriff, “there’s abundance o’ 
‘floats’ lying in among that mud, but, now that I 
think on it, that was the tail end they were on, 
them three fellers. In the course o’ time yonder 
chunk was broken off and sagged away into yonder 
wedge-like place of mud. I bet you the lead is right 
in this hill to back of us. Suppose you was pros- 
pectin’ along through the woods up there now and 
found any of them floats, why, you ’d go up to look 
for the lead right there. It wouldn’t astonish me 
one little bit to find that with the mud sliding away 
there it would jest be a case o’ tunnelling straight in.” 


244 "THE LOST CABIN MINE 

Apache Kid became so interested in this sugges- 
tion that he wanted to go back there and then to 
see what the storm and the mud-slide had laid bare, 
but the sheriff broke in on him: 

‘‘Sorry, sir; I understand your curiosity, and I ’m 
right curious myself ; but I ’m sheriff first, and in- 
terested in mineral after ; ” and then the hard, cal- 
lous side of the man peeped through, and yet with 
that whimsical look on his chubby face : “ But after 
I Ve seen you safely kickin’ I don’t know but what 
I might come along and have a study of the lay of 
the land now.” 

“Well,” said Apache Kid, lightly, “to a man in 
your position it would n’t matter so much, though 
the assay was nothing very great.” 

“No, sir; that’s so,” said the sheriff. “So you 
see that it ’s advisable for a man to get a position 
in life. Sheriff Carson of Baker City has expressed 
in glowin’ terms his faith in the near future of the 
valley,” he said, like a man reading. 

Apache Kid laughed. 

“ I suppose Sheriff Carson’s expression of faith 
would soon enough get up a syndicate to work 
it!” 

“ I would n’t just say no,” said the sheriff. 

There was more of such banter passed, and sug- 
gestions as to where the city — Carson City — would 
be built; but when Apache Kid suggested the stage- 
coach route the sheriff scoffed. 


THE MUDSLIDE 


245 


Stage-route nothing ! ” he said. Railroad you 
mean, spur-line clear to Carson City.’" 

“ The country is sure opening up and developing 
to lick creation,” said Slim; but at that the sheriff 
frowned. He might banter with his prisoner, but 
not with his subordinate. 

So we saddled up again, the sheriff looking with 
interest on the heavy gunny-bags that we stowed 
carefully away again among the blankets on our 
pack-horse, but making no comment on them. He 
must have known pretty well what they contained. 

Apache Kid’s eyes and his met, and something 
of the look I have already told you of, that came 
at times, grew on Apache Kid’s face, and a sort 
of reply to it woke in the sheriff’s. But, as I say, 
no word passed on the matter then. Apache Kid 
had taken care to bring our treasures from the 
cabin before thinking of aught else. 

That return journey with the sheriff, which had 
been so suddenly proved impossible, was to bring 
our firearms which the sheriff had appropriated on 
his arrival and made Slim set in a corner. The 
sheriff himself was not in a very happy mood, quite 
snappy because of that foiled attempt. He had 
thrown off his cartridge-belt in the cabin, and in the 
flurry at the end had only been able to secure his 
rifle in addition to his blankets. How many charges 
were in its magazine I did not know. He had worn 
his cartridge-belt apart from the belt to which his 


246 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


revolver hung, and in the latter were no cartridge- 
holders. 

Part of the sheriff’s ** shortness ” when speaking 
to Slim was due to the fact, I think, that Slim, intent 
upon getting out the provisions, had come away 
without a thought for any arms at all. But the 
Indian had made up for Slim, for he had not un- 
buckled his arsenal, and in addition to his revolver had, 
on either side of his tanned and fringed coat, cartridge 
pockets with four shells on either side. The loss of 
our weapons (Apache’s and mine) mattered little. 

But this is all by the way, and was not so care- 
fully considered at the time as these remarks would 
lead you to think. I mention it here at all simply 
because of what happened later. We were not seers 
or prophets to be able at the time to know all that 
this shortage of ammunition was to mean. 

Enough of that matter, then, and as for the jour- 
ney through the wilderness, which was by Canlan’s 
route now, at an acute angle from our former route, 
I need not tire you with a description. It was just 
the old story of plod, plod, plod over again ; of trees 
and open glades and silence, and at nightfall the 
forest voices that you know of already. 

After three days of this plodding we sighted a soar- 
ing blue mountain ridge with snow in its high corries 
and this as I guessed was Baker Ridge ; but it took 
us a good day’s journey to come to its base, even 
though the valley between was but scantily wooded. 


THE MUDSLIDE 247 

It was on the afternoon of the fourth day that we 
came to the eastern shoulder of Baker Ridge and lost 
sight for a space of the valley behind ere we sighted 
the one ahead, travelling as on a roof of the world 
where were only scattered blackberry bushes and 
rocks strewn like tombstones or tipped on end like 
Druidical stones. 

Then the falling sides of the southern steep came 
to view, bobbing up before us, and on the first plateau 
of the descent the sheriff had some private talk with 
Slim who presently, with a final nod to a final word of 
instruction, set off with a sweep of his pony’s tail and 
loped away out of sight, going down sheer against 
the sky over the plateau’s verge. 

When we, following more slowly, arrived at that 
point he was nowhere visible, having evidently pushed 
on speedily. Nor at the third level did we have any 
sight of him, though now we caught a glimpse of the 
first sign of civilisation — a feather of steam puffing 
up away to left among the scrubby trees, indicating 
the Bonanza mine; and a little beyond it another 
plume of steam from the McNair mine. A little be- 
low us there was a running stream and this being a 
sheltered fold of the hill, I suppose, defended from 
the east and north, there grew honeysuckle there and 
the scent of it came to us most refreshingly. There 
we sat down, apparently, from the sheriff’s manner, 
to await some turn of events. 


CHAPTER XXIII 

Sheriff Changes His Opinion 

r was a good two hours after the 
departure of Slim. 

We sat in silence (while the ponies 
browsed the tufts of grass) watching 
the clouds of mosquitos hanging in 
their phalanxes along the trickle of the stream and 
the bright, gauzy, blue wings of two mosquito-hawks 
flashing through their midst. 

“ By the way,*’ said Apache Kid, do you know if 
Miss Pinkerton herself has heard of this accusation 
against me?” 

“ By now, she is liable to have heard some rumour 
of it, I reckon,” said the sheriff ; “ but as to whether 
she heard the news or not at the time of my starting 
out after you, I dunno.” 

The implication was amusing. 

Ah, yes, of course,” said Apache Kid. ‘‘ You act 
so promptly, always. Sheriff.” 

The Indian, who was sitting a little above us, 
spoke ; “ Tree men,” he said, “ an’ tree men and one 

man come along up-hill beside the honeysuckle.” 

‘‘That’s seven,” said Apache Kid. 

“Seven?” said the Sheriff, sharply, rising to his 
feet; “and no waggon?” 



SHERIFF CHANGES OPINION 2^g 


** No.’* 

“I reckon this is a deppitation,” said the sheriff, 
as he glared down-hill. 

** I don’t like deputations of seven,” said Apache 
Kid, looking down to the honeysuckle. “ We were 
visited by one deputation of seven on this trip 
already; eh, Francis?” 

“Ho? ’’said the sheriff. “You didn’t tell me;” 
but he was not looking at Apache. He was gazing 
across the rolling land towards those who were com- 
ing in our direction, now quite plain to see — seven 
mounted men, armed, and suspicion-rousing. 

“ Pity about them guns and shells being lost,” said 
the sheriff, and then he sung out : 

“ Halt right there and talk. What you want ? ” 

One man moved his horse a step or two ahead of 
the others, who had reined in. 

“ We want that man you have there,” said he. 

“ Halt right there,” said the sheriff again ; and then 
he remarked to Apache : 

“ Reckon you ’d rather travel down to Baker City 
with a reputable sheriff and have an orderly trial be- 
fore hangin’ instead o’ hangin’ up here-aways without 
no trial.” 

“ I ’d rather go down ” 

“ Halt right there ! ” roared the sheriff. 

“ — and prove myself innocent of the charge,” 
Apache ended. 

“Well, then,” said the sheriff, “I reckon here’s 


250 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

where we become allies and you gets on the side o* 
law and order for once. Take that,” and he clapped 
the butt of his Colt into Apache Kid’s hand. “ Draw 
close, boys, till I palaver ; ” and he rose from his rock 
seat, with his Winchester lying on his arm. 

“ Well, gentlemen,” he said. ** I reckon you 's all 
aware that you are buttin’ up ag’in law and order,” 
he began. 

Law is gettin’ kind of tender-hearted,” replied 
one of the newcomers. “We want to see justice 
done.” 

“ I don’t seem to know your face,” said the sheriff. 

“ Oh ! We ’re mostly from outside your jurisdic- 
tion,” was the reply. “ We jest came along up from 
the Half-Way House to see that justice is done in 
this yere matter.” 

“ I don’t know ’em,” said the sheriff to Apache Kid. 

“ That ’s not their fault,” said Apache Kid. “ I 
know two of them by head-mark. A fat lot they 
care for seeing justice done. It ’s revenge they want 
on the loss of Farrell.” 

“What about Farrell?” said the sheriff. “You 
did n’t tell me.” 

“ He was one of the seven I mentioned,” said 
Apache Kid. “ But where, might I ask. Sheriff, do 
you intend to make your fire zone?” And he 
nodded his head toward the seven who were walking 
their horses a trifle nearer yet. 

“Yes,” said the sheriff, “they do creep up some. 


SHERIFF CHANGES OPINION 251 

Bern, if we could only pow-wow with *em till Slim 
gets back with the posse and the waggon.’* 

This was the first hint of what business Slim had 
been despatched upon, but that is by the way. The 
sheriff apparently was not to be permitted a ** pow- 
wow ” to kill the time. 

See here,” cried the spokesman of the party, 
‘‘jest you throw up your hands, the lot of you 
or ” 

“ Or what? ” said the sheriff. 

“ Or we come and take him.” 

“Now, gentlemen,” said the sheriff, “I’m a 
patient man. If it was n’t for the responsible position 
I holds, I would n’t argue one little bit with you, but 
you know I ’m elected kind o’ more to save life than 
to destroy it.” 

Apache hummed in the air. 

“ That’s just their objection,” said he, softly. 

“ Pshaw ! ” said the sheriff. “ That was a right 
poor cyard I played ; but it ’s tabled now and can’t 
be lifted. Get back there! By Jimminy! if you 
press any closer, we fire on you.” 

There was a quick word among the seven men and 
then they swooped on us. I tell you it was a sudden 
business that. Down went the sheriff on his knee. 
And next moment the now familiar smell of powder 
was in my nostrils. Two of the seven fell and their 
charge broke and they swept round us to left and 
right. 


252 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

Anybody hit here?” said the sheriff. ‘‘ Nobody! 
Guess they don’t want to hit you, Apache Kid.” 

I 'm getting used to that treatment,” said Apache 
Kid. ** It 's not the first time I Ve pressed a trigger 
on seven men who wanted my life — rather than my 
death,” he ended grimly. 

*‘You got to tell me about that, later,” said the 
sheriff. “ I gets interested in this seven business 
more and more every time you refers to it.” 

** I hope to have the opportunity, at least,” said 
Apache, grimly, to satisfy your curiosity.” 

“ Look up ! Here they come again,” the sheriff 
interjected. 

There was another crackle to and fro, a quick 
pattering of hoofs and flying of tails. One bullet 
zipped on a granite block in front of me and spat- 
tered the splinters in my face. The five wheeled and 
gathered ; one of the fallen men crawled away and 
lay down in the shadow of a rock to look on at the 
fight, with a sick face. 

“They do look like as they were gatherin’ again 
systematic. Pity about that there mud-slide cornin’ 
so sudden,” remarked the sheriff again, as though 
talking to himself more than to us ; and then again 
he cried : “ Look up ! ” 

Down came the five then, bent in their saddles, 
their right hands in air, apparently determined to 
make a supreme effort. They were going to try the 
effect of a dash past, with dropping shots as they 


SHERIFF CHANGES OPINION 253 

came. But at a word from one they wheeled, rode 
back a distance, and then, spinning round, rode back 
as you have seen fellows preparing for a running start 
in a race, wheeled, and then came down in a scatter 
of dust, and a cry of Yah ! Yah ! ** to their horses. 

Next moment they were past — four of them. 

“ If them four fellows come again,” said the Indian, 

my name Dennis.” 

I wondered how Apache Kid could titter at this 
remark. 

I thought perhaps that it was half excitement that 
caused the laugh. It was not that exactly, however. 
It was something else. 

“ As you remarked,” said he to the sheriff, ** it 's a 
pity about that mud-slide,” and he swung his revolver 
to and fro in a limp hand. 

“ Don’t drop that gun o’ yours,” said the sheriff in 
anxiety. “ Don’t you give the show plumb away. 
By Jimminy! they are meditatin’ another. Say! 
Guess I ’ll palaver again some.” 

He leaped to his feet and waved the palm of his 
hand toward the four and then set it to the side of 
his mouth like a speaking-trumpet. 

“ I tell yous,” he cried, “ I ’m not a bloody man. 
I’m ag’in blood. That’s why I give you this last 
reminder that you ’re kickin’ ag’in the law and I 
advise you to take warnin’ from what you got 
already. If I wasn’t ag’in blood, I wouldn’t talk 
at all.” 


254 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


Apache Kid tittered again. 

'' You need n’t just tell them it ’s your own blood 
you are thinking of, Sheriff.” 

“ No ! ” said the sheriff, with a queer, flat look about 
his face — I don’t know how else to describe it — 
“ I ’ve said enough, I reckon. If I seem anxious to 
spare ’em and warn ’em off some more, they might 
be liable to tumble to it that we ’ve put up our last 
fight, eh?” And he gave a grim, mirthless laugh. 

The four seemed uncertain. Then one of them 
looked down-hill, the other three followed his gaze, 
and away they flew above us and round in a circle, 
not firing now, to where their wounded comrade lay 
by the rock, and after capturing his horse, one of 
them, alighting, helped him to the saddle. It is a 
wonder to me that they did not surmise that our 
ammunition was done, for they came close enough 
to carry away the others who had fallen. But they 
themselves did not fire again. They seemed in haste 
to be gone, and with another glance round and shak- 
ing their fists backwards as they rode, they departed 
athwart the slope and broke into a jogging lope down 
Baker shoulder. 

Apache Kid had moved away a trifle from the rest 
of us as we watched this departure, and now he sat 
grinning at the sheriff who was mopping his brow 
and head. 

Well, Sheriff,” he said. ‘‘ I hope this convinces 
you of my innocence.” 


SHERIFF CHANGES OPINION 255 

“What?” asked the sheriff, a little pucker at the 
eyes. 

Apache handed him back the revolver that he had 
received at the beginning of the fight. 

“That ! ” said he. 

The sheriff looked at the chambers which Apache 
Kid’s finger indicated with dignified triumph. 

“ Two shells that you did n’t fire ! ” said the 
sheriff. “What does that show?” 

“ That I had you held up if I had liked — you and 
your Indian — and I passed the hand, so to speak. 
My friend and I might leave you now if we so desired. 
There are other ways through the mountains besides 
following these gentlemen. We could do pretty well, 
he and I, I think.” 

The sheriff smiled grimly. 

“ This here Winchester that 's pointin’ at your belly 
has one shell in yet,” said he. “It come into my 

haid that maybe ” and he stopped and then in a 

voice that seemed to belie a good deal of what I had 
already taken to be his nature, a voice full of beseech- 
ing, he said : “ Say, Apache, I got to apologise to you 
for keepin’ up this yere shell. You ’re a deep man, sir, 
but I guess you are innocent, right enough, o’ wipin’ 
out Pinkerton. Here comes Slim and the waggon.” 

Apache looked with admiration on the sheriff. 

“ Diamond cut diamond,” he said, and laughed ; 
and then said he : “ And have I to apologise for 
keeping my two shells?” 


256 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

‘‘No, sir! cried the sheriff. “You kept them to 
show me you was square. I kept my last one be- 
cause I did n’t trust you. I guess I do now.” 

“ We begin to understand each other,’’ said 
Apache. 

“ I don’t know about understand,’’ said the sheriff. 
“ But I sure am getting a higher opinion of you than 
I had before.’’ 


CHAPTER XXIV 

For Fear of Judge Lynch 

HE long, dragging scream of wheels 
came to our ears, putting an end to 
this mutual admiration; and then 
there came out of the cool of the 
woods below, where the honeysuckle 
showed, into the blaze of the hillside, with its grey- 
blue granite blocks and their blue shadows, a large 
Bain-waggon drawn by two horses. 

On either side of it two men rode on dark horses. 
The sheriff signed to the cortege to stop, and by the 
time that we had descended to this party the waggon 
was turned about. 

** Well,” said the sheriff to Slim who was driving 
the team, his horse hitched behind, “ you got it from 
him. Was he kind o’ slow about lendin’ it ? ” 

Nosiree,” said Slim. “ He was settin’ on a 
dump near the cable-house when I got to the mine, 
settin’ shying crusts o’ punk at the chipmunks — 
they ’ve a pow’ful lot of them around the Molly 
Magee — and he seemed kind o’ astonished to see 
me. ‘ Up to business ? ’ he says, ‘ up to business ? 
You ain’t goin’ to take him away from me ? ’ he says, 

meanin’, of course, the violinist ” 

17 



258 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


Apache said to me at that: Remind me to tell 
you what he means — about the violinist.” 

“ So I jest tells him no,” continued Slim, “ and 
asked him the loan o’ one of his waggons, and he 
says, ^ What for ? ’ And I takes him by the lapel o’ 
his coat an' says, ‘ Can you keep a secret ? ’ and he 
says then, ‘ Aha,’ he says, ‘ I know what it is. You 
got Apache Kid on the hill there and you want the 
waggon to get him through the city for fear o’ any of 
the boys tryin’ to get a shot at him.’ Says I : ‘ Who 
told you? Guess again.’ And he says he reck- 
oned he would lend me the waggon, and right 
pleased” (Slim shot a meaning look at Apache 
Kid), “but as for keepin’ quiet, that was beyond 
him, he said.” 

“ Bern ! ” said the sheriff. “ So he ’ll be telling 
the Magee boys and havin’ ’em cornin’ huntin’ after 
us, like enough, for our prisoner, if feelin’ is high 
about this.” 

Slim laid a finger to his nose. “ Nosiree,” said 
he. “ I jest told him if he could n’t keep holt o’ our 
secret for three hours, and give us a start, that first 
thing he knew we’d come along and be liftin’ his 
violinist, some fine day, along with a nice French 
policeman or sheriff, or what they call ’em there — 
grand army or something — all the way from Paris.” 

The sheriff gloated on this. 

“ That would tighten him up some,” said he. 

“ It did,” replied Slim, and would have continued 


FOR FEAR OF JUDGE LYNCH 259 

to pat himself on the back for his diplomacy, I believe, 
but the sheriff turned abruptly to Apache Kid and 
me and ordered us with a new sharpness, because of 
the newcomers, I suppose, to get into the waggon ; 
and soon we were going briskly down-hill, the four 
mounted men riding two by two on either side, the 
sheriff loping along by the team’s side and my pack- 
horse trotting behind, with Slim’s mount in charge of 
the Indian. 

We gathered from the remarks of the sheriff that 
these four men had been camped down-hill a little 
way for three days, out of sight of the waggon track, 
awaiting our coming. Slim had evidently, after 
securing the waggon, picked them up. 

“That violinist,” said Apache Kid to me, “that 
Slim mentioned to the Molly Magee boss by way of a 
threat, is rather a notable figure here. He was leader 
of an orchestra in Paris, embezzled money, bolted out 
here and up at the Molly Magee gets his three and a 
half dollars a day of miner’s wages and keeps his 
hands as soft as a child’s. He could n’t tap a drill on 
the head two consecutive times to save his life.” 

“ What do they keep him for, then ? ” I asked. 
“ And why do they pay him ? ” though really I was 
not much interested in violinists at the time and won- 
dered how Apache Kid could talk at all or do else 
than long for getting well out of this grievous pass 
that he was in. And, from his own lips, I knew he 
thought his condition serious. 


26 o the lost cabin MINE 


** Well,” said he, the reason why gives you an 
idea of how very stiff a miner’s lot is in some places. 
The Molly Magee mine is a wet mine, very wet, and 
it lies in a sort of notch on the hill where the wind is 
always cold. Crossing from the mine to the bunk- 
house men have been known to take a pain in the 
back between the shoulder-blades, bend forward, and 
remark on the acuteness of it and be dead in three 
hours — of pneumonia. It *s a wet mine and a cold 
hill. This violinist is just a Godsend to the owners. 
Instead of having to be content with whoever they 
can get to work the mine for them they have the 
pick of the miners of the territory ; even most of the 
muckers in the mine are really full-fledged miners, 
but are yet content to take muckers’ wages — and all 
because of this violinist. He plays to them, you see, 
and his fame has gone far and wide over the territory. 
The Molly Magee, bad mine though she is, with a 
store of coffins always kept there, never lacks for 
miners. That ’s what they keep our violinist for.” 

But we were jolting well down-hill now and soon 
caught glimpses of Baker City between the trees. 

“ I reckon you better lie down in the bottom of 
that there waggon,” said the sheriff, looking round, 
his left hand resting on his horse’s quarters. “ When 
they see you it might rouse them.” 

‘‘ Sir ! ” said Apache (it was the first word he had 
spoken, apart from his talk with me, since the guard 
joined us), ‘‘ I ’m innocent of this charge, and I want 


FOR FEAR OF JUDGE LYNCH 261 

to live to disprove it, not for my own honour alone. 
For many reasons, for many reasons I want to disprove 
it. But I ’m damned if I grovel in the bottom of a 
waggon for any hobo in Baker City ! ” 

The sheriff said not a word in reply, just nodded 
his head as though to say, “ So be it, then,” stayed his 
horse till the waggon came abreast, leant from his 
saddle and spoke a word to Slim, who suddenly emitted 
a yell that caused the horses to leap forward. 

The guard on either side had their Winchesters 
with the butts on their right thighs — and so we went 
flying into Baker City, the sheriff again spurring 
ahead; so we whirled along, with a glimpse of the 
Laughlin House, dashed down that street, suddenly 
attracting the attention of those who stayed there, and 
they, grasping the situation after a moment’s hesita- 
tion, came pounding down on the wooden sidewalks 
after us. 

So we swept into Baker Street, where a great cry 
got up, and men rose on the one-storey-up verandahs 
of the hotels and craned out to look on us ; and the 
throng ran on the sidewalks on either side. 

Apache Kid had a sneer beginning on his lips, but 
that changed and his brows knitted as a man who, 
on toting up a sum, finds the result other than he 
expected. For those who saw our arrival waved 
their hats in air and cheered our passage ; and it was 
with a deal of wonder and astonishment that I saw the 
look of admiration on the brown faces that showed 


262 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

through the dust we raised. To me it looked as 
though, had these men cared to combine to stop 
our progress, it would not have been to hale Apache 
Kid before Judge Lynch, but rather to have taken the 
horses from the waggon, as you see students do with 
the carriage of some man who is their momentary 
hero, and drag us in triumph through the city. 

The sheriff had expected to find the city enraged at 
us, anxious to do “justice” in a summary fashion. 

This cheering must have puzzled him. It certainly 
puzzled us. 


CHAPTER XXV 

"the Making of a Public Hero 

N old, bowed greybeard, with an ex- 
pressionless, weather-beaten mask of 
a face, closed the gate into the “ lock- 
up ” after us as we swept into the 
square. I remember the jar with 
which that massive gate closed, but somehow it did 
not affect me as I thought it should have done. Per- 
haps the reason for this absence of awe was due to the 
fact that the murmur of voices without, as of a con- 
course gathering there, was not a belligerent murmur. 

If Judge Lynch goes to work like this,” said I to 
myself, “ he has a mighty cheerful way of carrying 
out his justice on those who offend him.” 

But I saw that the sheriff and Slim and the guard 
also were somewhat ** at sea,” at a loss to account for 
the manner of our reception. The sheriff flung off his 
horse and marched into the gaol building, I suppose 
to see that the entrance into the office was closed. 
We remained still in the waggon. 

Slim chewed meditatively and spat in the sand of 
the patio, or square — familiarity I suppose breeding 
contempt — and to the old greybeard, who had 
closed the gate on our entrance, and now stood by 



264 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

the waggon clapping the quick-breathing horses, he 
said : “ Well, Colonel, you know how them turbulent 
populace acts. You hev seen some turbulent popu- 
laces in your time, Colonel. What does this yere 
sound of levity pertend ? 

‘‘You mought think from the sound they was 
electin’ a new mayor, eh?” said the old man ad- 
dressed as colonel. “ B’ain’t a bangin’, for sure,” 
and at these words I impulsively laid my hand on 
Apache Kid’s forearm and pressed it ; but the colonel 
at the same moment tapped Apache Kid on the small 
of the back, and he turned round to find that worthy 
holding up a leathery hand and saying, “ Shake.” 

“ With pleasure,” said Apache Kid. “ It is an 
honour to me to shake hands with you, Colonel.” 

The old man seemed to enjoy being addressed in 
this flattering fashion, which doubtless Apache Kid 
knew; for after the hand-shaking, when the colonel 
waddled away to the horses’ heads to begin un- 
hitching, a task in which Slim promptly assisted 
(I think more to ask questions, however, rather 
than to share the work), Apache Kid remarked 
to me: 

“ He ’s a great character, that ; he goes out 
about town now with the chain-gang; you must 
have seen him trotting behind them, with his head 
bowed, squinting up at his flock from the corners 
of his eyes, his rifle in hand. That ’s the job he gets 
in the evening of his days; but if any man could 


MAKING OF A PUBLIC HERO 265 

make your hair curl, as the expression is, that old 
man could do it with his yarns about the days when 
everything west of the Mississippi was the Great 
American Desert. He seems to be congratulating 
me on something. Whether he thinks I 'm one of 
the baddest bad men he ’s ever seen, or whether ” 

It was then that the sheriff came slowly down the 
three steps into the square. 

“You two gentlemen,” said he, “might be good 
enough to step this way. And say. Slim ! That 
there pack-horse is jest to be left standing, mean- 
while. I reckon the property on its back ain’t come 
under the inspection of the law yet — quite.” 

I could have cried out with joy; not for myself, 
for the sheriff had led me to believe all the way that 
I had got mixed up with this “ trouble ” on the less 
objectionable side, — the right side. It was for 
Apache Kid that my heart gladdened. Yet he, to *' 
all appearance, was as little affected by this ray of 
hope as he had been by the expectation of “ stretch- 
ing hemp.” 

He swung his leg leisurely over on to the tire of 
the wheel, stepped daintily on to the hub, and leaped 
to the ground. 

“ At your service. Sheriff,” said he, and I followed 
him. 

I noticed that the sheriff had again assumed his 
ponderous frown, a frown that I was beginning to 
consider a meaningless thing, — a sort of mere badge 


266 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


of office. He led us into a white-painted room, where 
a young lady habited plainly in black sat, with bent 
and sidewise head. And we were no sooner into the 
room, hats in hand, than the door closed behind us 
and we heard the sheriff’s ponderous tread depart 
with great emphasis down an echoing corridor. 

The young lady, as you have surmised, was Mr. 
Pinkerton’s daughter; and there was a wan smile 
of welcome on her saddened face as she looked 
up to us. 

We stood like shamed, heart-broken culprits be- 
fore her; and I know that my heart bled for her. 

She was so changed from the last time I had seen 
her. The innocent expression of her face, the open- 
ness and lack of all pose, were still evident ; but these 
things served to make her lonely position the more 
sad to think of. She was like a stricken deer ; and 
her great eyes looked upon us, craving, even before 
she spoke her yearning, some word of her father. 

“Tell me,” she said. “Charlie has told me — in 
his way. Oh ! It is a hard, bitter story, as it comes 
from him.” 

“ To my mind,” said Apache Kid, in a soft voice, 
“ it is at once one of the saddest stories and one of 
which the daughter cannot think without a greater 
honouring of her father.” 

Her hungering eyes looked squarely on him, but 
she spoke not a word. 

“ To me,” he said, “ his passing must be ever 


MAKING OF A PUBLIC HERO 267 

remembered with very poignant grief; and to my 
friend ” — and he inclined his head to me — “ it must 
be the same.” 

I thought she was on the brink of tears and break- 
ing down, and so, I think, did he ; for as I looked 
away sad (and ashamed, in a way), he said: “God 
knows how I feel this ! ” 

I think the interjection of this personal cry helped 
her to be strong to hear. She tossed the tears from 
her eyes bravely, and he went on : 

“When I think that he died through simple dis- 
interested kindness, and that that kindness, that was 
his undoing, was done for me — and my friends,” he 
said in a lower tone, “ then, though it makes me but 
the more sorrowful, I feel that ” — he spoke the rest 
more quickly — “ he died a death such as any man 
might wish to die. It was a noble death, and he was 
the finest man ” 

“ Oh ! ” she cried, “ but I — I — it was I who bade 
him follow you.” 

Apache Kid’s eyes were staring on the floor; and 
in the agony of my heart, whether well or ill advised 
I do not know, I said : 

“Your name was the last on his lips.” 

Her face craved all that could be told ; and I told 
her all now, she growing calmer, with bitten lips, as 
I, feeling for her grief, found the more pain. 

Then Apache Kid spoke, and I found a tone in his 
voice, — I, who had come to know him, being cast 


268 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


beside him in the mountain solitudes, — that made 
me think he spoke what he did, not because he really 
did believe it, but because he thought it fit to say. 

“ It may seem strange,” said he, ‘‘ to hear it from 
my lips, as though I desired to lighten my own re- 
gret, but I think our days are all ordained for us; 
and when those we love have been ordained to un- 
selfishness, and to gain the crown of unselfishness, 
which is ever a crown of thorns, we can be but thank- 
ful — though at the moment we dare not say this to 
ourselves.” 

He looked dumbly at me, pleadingly, I thought. I 
had an idea that his eyes besought something of me 
— but I knew not what ; and then he turned to her 
and took her hand ever so fearfully, and said : 

You will remember that we have a charge from 
him, as my friend has told you ; and indeed, it was 
not necessary that the charge should have been laid 
on us.” He dropped her hand, and looking at me, 
said : I believe we both would have considered it a 

privilege to in some slight way ” he seemed to 

feel that he was upon the wrong track, and she said : 

‘‘ Oh ! That is nothing. Now that I have heard it 
all from you it is not — not so cruel as Charlie’s ac- 
count. I think I must go now, and I have to thank 
you for being so truthful with me and telling me it all 
so plainly.” 

She turned her face aside again and we perceived 
that she would be alone. So we passed from the 


MAKING OF A PUBLIC HERO 269 


room very quietly and saw the sheriff at the end of 
the corridor beckoning us, and went toward him. 

“ She hes told you, I guess,” said he, ** that the 
case is off.” 

Apache shook his head. 

“ Pshaw ! ” said the sheriff. “ What she want with 
you ? ” 

” To hear how Mr. Pinkerton died.” 

“ But she knew.” 

Yes,” said Apache Kid, ** as a savage saw it.” 

The sheriff puckered his heavy mouth and raised 
his eyes. 

“Sure!” said he. “That’s what. Pretty coarse, 
I guess. You would kind o’ put the limelight on 
the scene.” 

“Sir, sir!” said Apache Kid. We have just 
come from her.” 

“ I beg your pardon, gen’lemen,” he said. “ I 
understand what you mean ; I know — women and 
music, and especially them songs about Mother, and 
the old farm, and such, jest makes me feel too, at 
times. I understand, boys, and I don’t mock you 
none. And that jest makes me think it might be 
sort of kind in you if you was goin’ out and gettin’ 
them cheerin’ boys out there some ways off, lest she 
hears them cheerin’ an’ it kind o’ jars on her.” 

“Then I am free?” 

“ Yap ; that ’s what,” said the sheriff. “ She rode 
up here with that Indian trailer feller when the news 


270 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


spread. The colonel tells me that it was a fellow, 
Pious Pete, hetched the story out. It was two 
strangers to me came to inform me about the killing 
of Pinkerton — said they saw you do it from out a 
bush where they was camped, and would have gone 
for you but they had gone busted on cartridges and 
you was heeled heavy. They put up a good enough 
story about them bein’ cornin’ back from a prospectin’ 
trip, and had it all down fine. So I jest started 
right off.” 

“ But how did you know what way to come for 
us?” asked Apache Kid. 

** Oh, well, you see, I had been keepin’ track of 
Canlan. I hed lost sight o’ you, and when I heard 
you was in the hills away over there, and also knew 
how Canlan had gone out over Baker shoulder, I 
began to guess where The Lost Cabin lay. It was 
handier like for me to start trackin’ Canlan than to 
go away down to Kettle with them fellows and into 
the mountains there, and try to get on to your trail 
where they said you had buried Mr. P.” 

Apache Kid nodded. 

“ So I left them two here to eat at the expense o’ 
the territory till my return. It was the colonel got 
onto them fust — recognised ’em for old friends of a 
right celebrated danger to civilisation which his name 
was Farrell.” 

** Ah ! ” said Apache Kid. 

** So I hear now, when I comes back, anyway,” 


MAKING OF A PUBLIC HERO 271 

said the sheriff. “ Then along comes Miss Pinkerton, 
and when they see her on the scene, well, why they 
reckon on feedin’ off this yere territory no more. 
The colonel is some annoyed that they didn’t wait 
on and try to hold up their story. I reckon they 
either had not figured on Miss P., or else had sur- 
mised she 'd not raise her voice ag’in’ your decoratin’ 
a rope. But I keep you from distractin’ them boys 
out there and they starts cheerin’ ag’in. After you 've 
kind o’ distributed them come back and see me. I ’m 
kind o’ stuck on you, Apache. I guess you ’ll make 
a good enough citizen yet — maybe you might be in 
the running yet for sheriff o’ Carson City within the 
next few years.” 

But a renewed outbreak of the cheering brought a 
frown to Apache Kid’s face and sent him to the door 
speedily, with me at his heels. 

The sheriff opened the door and out stepped 
Apache Kid. The first breath of a shout from the 
crowd there he stopped in the middle. What his 
face spoke I do not know, being behind him ; but his 
right thumb pointed over his shoulder, his left hand 
was at his lips, I think, — and the cry stopped. 

“Gentlemen,” he said, and broke the cry that 
threatened again to rise with a raised hand ; “ the 
lady within ” — he got to the core of his remark 
first “ has her own sorrow. We must think of 
her.” 

You could hear the gruff “That’s what,” and 


272 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

** That ’s no lie," and ** That 's talking," and see heads 
nodded to neighbour’s heads in the crowd. 

But the question was how to get away? Apache 
Kid stepped down to the street level and then, 
before we knew what was come to us we were 
clutched by willing hands and, shoulder high, headed 
a silent procession tramping in the dust out of ear- 
shot of the jail — that the woman within might not 
feel her sorrow more bitter and lonely hearing the 
cheers that were given to the men who had “ wiped 
out the Farrell gang.” 

So much the populace knew had happened. That 
much had leaked out, and the least that was expected 
of Apache Kid was that he would get out on some 
hotel verandah and allow himself to be gazed upon 
and cheered and make himself for a night an excuse 
for “celebration" and perhaps, also, in the speech 
that he must needs make, give some slight outline 
of how Farrell got it — to use (as Apache Kid would 
say) the phraseology of the country. 


CHAPTER XXVI 

Apache Kid Makes a Speech 

HERE was a good deal of the spirit 
of Coriolanus in Apache Kid, and he 
knew the worth of all this laudation. 

When we at last found ourselves 
jostled up onto the balcony of that 
saloon which I spoke of once as one of the “ toughest ” 
houses in Baker City, that very saloon at the door 
of which I had beheld the sheriff of Baker City give 
an example of his ‘‘smartness,” the throng was 
jostling in the street and crying out: 

“ What's the matter with Apache Kid? — He's all 
right ! '' 

Both question and answer in this cry were voiced 
always in one, not one man crying out the question 
and another replying, and it made the cry seem very 
droll to me. 

Apache Kid was thrust to the front and the 
crowd huzzahed again and shouted: “Speech!” 
And others cried out: “Tell us about Farrell's 
gang.” 

So Apache Kid stepped to the rail and raised his 
head, and, “ Gentlemen,” he began, “ this is a great 
honour to me ; ” and they all cried out again. 

i8 



274 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


** If it is not,” said he, it should be.” 

I think the majority took this for humour and they 
laughed and wagged their heads and looked up smil- 
ing, for more. 

‘‘ When I think of how so shortly ago I merited 
your disapproval and now, instead of gaining that, 
am welcomed so heartily and effusively, I cannot but 
feel how deeply I am indebted to all the citizens — ” 
he paused and I heard him laugh in his throat, “ of 
our progressive and progressing city.” 

They gave vent to a bellow of pleasure and some 
cried out again : “Farrell! Farrell! Tell us about 
Farrell.” 

“ I must appeal to the sense of propriety,” he said, 
“ for which our western country is famous. In the 
West we are all gentlemen.” 

There was a cry of: “ That ’s what ! ” 

“ And a gentleman never forces anyone to take 
liquor when he does not want to, never forces anyone 
to disclose his history when he does not want to. 
The gentleman says to himself, in the first instance, 
‘ there is all the more for myself.’ In the second 
case he knows that his own past might scarcely bear 
scrutiny. Ah well ! As we are all gentlemen here 
I know that with perfect reliance in you I can say 
that I had rather not speak about Farrell and his 
gang.” 

There was a slight murmur at this. 

“There are men of the gang still in the territory. 


APACHE KID MAKES A SPEECH 275 

As you are now aware, it was they who came to you 
with a cock-and-bull story about me. In your de- 
sire to further law and order in this progressive 
Baker City you rightly decided that I must pay the 
penalty for the deed you believed that I had done.” 

He paused a moment and then continued in 
another tone: 

“ Now there is nothing I regret more than the sad 
death of Mr. Pinkerton. He was a man we all 
honoured and respected. I am glad you do not now 
believe that I was his slayer. With those who raised 
that calumny against me — should I meet them — 
I will deal as seems fit to me.” 

A great cheer followed this. 

Apache Kid cleared his throat. 

“ Men of Baker City ! ” he cried, “ I wish, finally, 
to thank you for this so exuberant expression of your 
regret that you believed me guilty.” 

They took this better than I expected. A cheer 
in which you heard an undercurrent of rich laughter 
filled the street and drowned his last words : 

“ I bear you no ill will.” 

He bowed, backed from the balcony-rail into the 
saloon, touched me on the arm where I stood by the 
door, and before those who had followed us in well 
knew what we were about, we had run through the 
sitting-room that gave out on that balcony, gained 
the rear of the house, and were posting back to the 
jail by the rear street. 


276 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

But there, relieved at last of the anxiety that had 
held me together all the way from the Lost Cabin 
Mine, knowing now that my friend was safe, all the 
vigour seemed to leave me. 

My memory harked back to the nights in the for- 
ests on the hillsides, to the attack upon us on the 
shoulder of Baker Ridge, to the mud-slide, to the 
night of Canlan’s madness, and the previous night of 
his onslaught on our camp. Larry Donoghue loomed 
in my mind’s eye, large-framed, loose-limbed, heavy- 
mouthed. Again I saw the summit over which we 
passed, the Dor^esque ravines and piled rocks, the 
forest trail, the valley where Mr. Pinkerton lay, on 
the cliff of which I had faced the terrors of the snake. 
I saw the Indians trooping at the ford, the dead men 
lying in the wood at Camp Kettle, the red-headed 
man in the Rest House, the loathsome drummer ” 
at the Half-Way House, — and all the while the 
sheriff’s voice was in my ears and sometimes Apa- 
che’s replying. 

My brain was in a whirl, and I heard the sheriff 
say: 

“ That boy is sick looking.” 

He said it in a kind, reassuring voice, and I knew 
that I was in the home of friends, and need no longer 
keep alert and watchful and fearful. My chin went 
down upon my breast. 

I had a faint recollection of fiery spirits being 
poured down my throat, and then of being caught by 


APACHE KID MAKES A SPEECH 277 

the arm-pits and lifted and held for awhile, and of 
voices whispering and consulting around me. Then 
I felt the air in my face, and came round sufficiently 
to know I was in the street, and the dim ovals of 
faces turned on me, following me as I was hur- 
ried forward at what seemed a terrible speed, and 
then I opened my eyes to find myself in a room with 
the blind down at the open window. 

It was night time, for the room was in darkness, 
and I lay looking at a thin cut in the yellow blind, a 
cut of about three inches long, through which the 
moonlight filtered ; and as I looked at it I saw it 
begin to move with a wriggling motion, and even as 
I looked on it it stretched upward and downward 
from either end. At the top ran out suddenly two 
horizontal cuts, the lower end split in two, and ran 
out left and right, and then it all turned into the form 
of a man like a jumping-jack, with twitching legs and 
waving arms. A head grew out of it next, and rolled 
from side to side ; it was the figure of Mike Canlan. 
I turned my head on the pillow and groaned. 

“ Heavens ! ” I cried, “ I am haunted yet by this.” 

And then a great number of voices began whisper- 
ing in a corner of the chamber. I cried out in terror, 
and then the door opened and a woman entered, car- 
rying a candle, shaded with one hand, the light of it 
striking upon her freckled face and yellow hair. 

It was Mrs. Laughlin, and she sat down by me and 
took my hand, feeling my pulse, and ran her rough 


278 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


palm across my brow. She may have been a bellig- 
erent woman, and had many “ tiffs ” with her hus- 
band, but I cannot tell you how soothing was her 
rough touch to me then, — rough, but extremely 
kind. 

The whisperings kept on, but very faint now, — 
fainter and fainter in my ears like far echoes, and, 
holding her bony hand, I fell asleep. 

The fever of the mountains, the weariness of the 
way, the fear of pursuit, the smell of powder, and the 
sight of dead men’s eyes, — all these I had braced 
myself against But now I steeled myself no longer. 
Now I rested, I, who had feared much and yet been 
strong (which I have heard persons say is the great- 
est form of bravery, — the coward's bravery), I rested 
fearless, clinging to this worn woman’s hand. 


CHAPTER XXVII 

Beginning of the End 


FEEL somehow that I have to apologise 
for “ giving in ” that way. I should 
have liked to figure before you like 
a cast-iron hero. But when I set out 
to tell you this story I made up my 
mind to tell the truth about all those concerned in it 
— myself included. 

I could not understand how Apache Kid kept so 
fresh through it all. But, of course, you remember 
what he told me of his life, and he was, as the saying 
is, ‘‘ hard as nails." Yet he avoided commiserating 
me on my condition, being a man quick enough to 
understand that I resented this break-down. He 
even went the length of telling me, as he sat in my 
room, that he felt “ mighty rocky after that trip," him- 
self. And when the doctor pronounced that I might 
get up, he told me that I was getting off very easily. 

On two points I had to question Apache Kid and 
his answers to my questions gave me a further insight 
into his character. The first of these matters was re- 
garding the wealth we had brought with us from the 
Lost Cabin Mine. 

‘‘ I have done nothing about it yet," said he. I 
thought it advisable for us to go together to the bank." 



28 o the lost cabin MINE 


I looked my surprise, I suppose. 

“ Then you have no idea what it amounts to yet? 

I asked. 

“ No,” said he. ** You know it will neither increase 
nor diminish with waiting.” 

“ But why did you wait? ” 

“ O,” he said lightly, ** if a man cannot wait for his 
partner getting well, and do the thing ship-shape, 
he must be very impatient.” 

** You don't seem anxious, even, to know what you 
are really worth.” 

I fear not,” said he. ** O, man, can’t you see 
that once we know, to a five-cent piece, what all that 
loot is worth, we are through with the adventure and 
there ’s no more fun to be had ? I’m never happy 
when I get a thing. It ’s in the hunting that I find 
relief.” 

But there fell a shadow on his face then. 

I asked him if Miss Pinkerton was still in Baker 
City. I declare, he blushed at the very mention of 
her name. I could see the red tinge the brown of 
his cheeks. 

I often wondered, when Apache Kid spoke, just 
what he was really thinking. He did not always say 
what he thought, or believe what he said. He had a 
way, too, of giving turns to his phrases that might 
have given him a name for a hardness that was not 
really his. 

‘‘O,” he said, ‘‘she heard that you were ill and 


THE BEGINNING OF THE END 281 


wanted to come and look after you, but you were 
babbling not just of green fields, exactly — you were 
babbling of Hell — and I can never get over a foolish 
idea that early in youth was pumped into me that 
women do not know about Hell and should not know. 
I thought it advisable to prevent her coming to see 
you — and hear you.” 

I felt my own cheeks tingle to think that I had 
been raving such ravings as he hinted at. 

** And did Mrs. Laughlin ” I began. 

But Mrs. Laughlin herself replied, coming quietly 
into the room. 

” Yes, yes,” she said, and laughed. “ Mrs. Laughlin 
heerd it all,” and then she turned on Apache Kid. 
** And Mrs. Laughlin was none the worse o’ hearing 
it, Apache Kid,” she said, “ not because she ’s old, 
but because in gettin’ up in years she ’s learnt how to 
weigh things and know the good from the bad, even 
though the good does look bad. Oh ! I know what 
you are thinking right now,” she interrupted herself. 
“ You ’re thinkin’ you might remark I don’t have no 
call to talk ’cause I heerd you talkin’ just now without 
you knowin’ ” 

“ Madam ” began Apache Kid, in a courteous 

voice, but she would not permit him to speak. 

** I was coming along in my stocking soles, in case 
the lad was sleeping,” and she plucked up her dress 
to disclose her stockinged feet, ** and I heerd by ac- 
cident what you was talkin’. And I ’m going to tell 


282 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


you, Mr. Apache Kid, that you 're a deal better a 
man than you pretend.” 

It was, to me, an unlooked-for comment, for her 
manner was almost belligerent. 

“ You had it pumped into you, you says ! O ! 
An old woman like me understands men well. It 's 
you sarcastic fellows, you would-be sarcastic fellows, 
that have the kind, good hearts. And you talk that 
way to kind of protect them. ” 

I saw Apache Kid knitting his brows; but, as for 
me, I do not know enough of human nature to 
profess to understand all that this wise woman spoke. 

‘‘ Take you care, Apache Kid,” she said, and shook 
her finger at him, and even on her finger, as I noticed, 
there were freckles, and on the back of her hand. 

Take you care that you don’t get to delude 
yourself into hardness, same as you delude men 
into thinking you a dangerous sort o’ fellow — a 
kind of enigma man.” 

“ I am afraid I don’t follow you,” said Apache Kid. 

“But you do follow me,” she said. “All you 
want to do is to let yourself go — let that bit of 
yourself go and have its way — that bit that you 
always make the other half of you sit and jeer at ! ” 

She paused, and then shaking her finger again 
remarked solemnly: 

“ Or you ’ll maybe find that the good, likeable 
half o’ you ain’t a half no longer, only a quarter, 
dwindled down to a quarter, and the half of you 


THE BEGINNING OF THE END 283 


that puts up this bluff in the face of men becomes 
three-quarter then. I 'm thinking I would n’t like 
you so good then, Apache Kid ! Not but what I 'd 
be ” she hesitated, sorry for you like,” she said. 

To win your sorrow, Mrs. Laughlin,” said he, look- 
ing on her solemnly, would be a desirable thing.” 

She gazed at him a long while, and to my utter 
astonishment, for I did not quite understand all this, 
there were tears in her eyes when she said, as to 
herself, ‘^Yes, you mean that.” 

She sighed, and then said she: “What you need 
is to settle down with a good, square, honest girl. 

If I was younger like myself ” she broke off 

merrily. 

Apache Kid looked her in the face with interested 
eyes. 

“ I wish I knew just what you were like, just how 
you spoke and acted when you were — in the posi- 
tion you have suggested as desirable.” 

“Would you have had me?” she said. 

“ I would perhaps have failed to know you pos- 
sessed all these qualities you do, for you would 
never have shown them to me.” 

“Would I not?” said she. “Well, I show my- 
self now ; and if you object to young girls not show- 
ing their real selves, you begin and set ’em the 
example. You go down to the Half-Way House 
and show that Miss Pinkerton your real self, 
and ” 


284 ‘THE LOST CABIN MINE 


** Mrs. Laughlin ! ” he said. ** I would not have 
expected this ” 

“ Why ! ” she cried, “ I ’m old enough to be your 
grandmother. Well, well ! I see the lad is all right ; 
that ’s what I came up for, so I ’ll get away down 
again.” 

“ Laughlin has certainly a jewel of a wife,” said 
Apache Kid, after she departed, and that was all 
on the matter. 

Miss Pinkerton herself was not mentioned again 
by either of us, and the other subject of our talk 
we settled two days later, when I, having “ got to 
my legs” again on the day following that chat, 
accompanied Apache Kid to the jail where the 
sheriff unlocked the safe for us and gave us our 
property, which he had in keeping. 

The horse, I heard then, had been returned to the 
livery stable from which Canlan had hired it. 

All that the sheriff had to say on the matter of 
our property was to the effect that though two of the 
Lost Cabin owners had been often enough known 
to say that they had no living relative, the other — 
Jackson — was supposed to have a sister living. 

** If you want to do the square thing,” said he, 
“you ought to advertise for her.” 

Apache turned to me. 

“ I forgot that,” said he ; “I forgot to tell you,” 
and he drew a newspaper from his pocket. “ Don’t 
you get the ‘Tribune,’ Sheriff!” 


THE BEGINNING OF THE END 285 


He opened the paper and pointed to his announce- 
ment for relatives of J. E. Jackson. 

‘'I have put it in this local rag,” said he, ** and 
a similar one in a dozen leading papers over the 
States, and in three of the smaller papers in his 
own State. I heard he was an Ohio man.” 

The sheriff held out his hand. 

“ I once reckoned,” said he, “ that we 'd be ornament- 
ing a telegraph pole in Baker City with you, but now I 
reckon we will see you sheriff of Carson City, sure.” 

Apache Kid took the proffered hand and shook 
it ; but he showed me deeper into himself again when 
he said in a dry voice; 

“ I don’t think. Sheriff, that there will be any real 
need for you to congratulate me any oftener than 
you have done already, on finding out further mis- 
takes you have made in your attempts to discover 
my real character.” 

And so saying we went out ; and as I shook the 
sheriffs hand I noticed that he took mine absently. 
I think he was pondering what my friend had said. 

‘‘ One grows weary of patronage,” said Apache 
Kid to me as we plodded along the deserted streets 
to the bank. 

“ Deserted streets? ” you say. Yes, deserted. For 
an ‘"excitement” had sprung up at Tremont during 
my ten days in bed. As we passed the hotels on 
our way to the bank, the hotels that had always 
been thronged and full of voices, the doors always 


286 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

on the swing, we saw now on the verandah of each 
of them one solitary man, with chair tilted back and 
feet in the rail. These were the worthy proprietors, 
each figuring on the chances of Baker City booming 
again, each wondering if he should follow the rush. 

As we passed the corner of the street in which 
“ Blaine’s joint ” had stood, I noticed above the door 
and window a strip of wood less sun-scorched than 
the rest. That was where the famous canvas sign 
had been, rolled up now and carted off with the coffee- 
urn to this other “city” that had depopulated Baker 
City. The stores, of course, were still open ; for the 
city which is centre for five paying mines can never 
die. It may not always boom, with megaphones in 
every window and cigar smoke curling in the streets, 
but it will not languish. 

Still, it was not the Baker City that I knew of yore, 
and as we entered the door of the bank, carrying our 
bullion, it struck me that the stage-setting was just in 
keeping with the part we played ; for as Apache Kid 
had said — when we knew our wealth the adventure 
would be over. This was the last Act, Scene I. And 
I felt a quiver in my heart when the thought intruded 
itself, even then, that Scene II (and last) would be a 
farewell to Apache Kid. 

Slowly the teller in the bank weighed out our nug- 
gets, scanning us between each weighing over his 
gold-rimmed glasses and noting down the amounts 
on his writing pad. 


THE BEGINNING OF THE END 287 

“ Grand total,” said he, and paused to awaken the 
thrill of suspense, ** forty thousand dollars.” 

Forty thousand dollars,” thought I, ** and fifteen 
hundred in notes, that makes forty-one thousand five 
hundred.” 

A mere flea-bite,” Apache said. 

“ I beg your pardon? ” said the teller, astonished. 

** A mere flea-bite,” repeated Apache Kid. Look 
at that,” and he held up a turquoise in his fingers. 
“ Don’t you think a man would give forty-one thou- 
sand five hundred for a bagful of these? ” 

“ A bagful ? ” said the teller. 

Apache nodded. 

Do you wish to dispose of some of these, too ? ” 
the teller asked. 

“ No, thanks,” said Apache Kid. ** They go to an 
eastern market.” 

“ An eastern market ! ” Did that mean that Apache 
Kid was going east? Was I to have his company 
home? Home I myself was going. But he — as I 
looked at his brown face, the alert eyes puckered at 
the side with long life in the sunshine, the lips close 
with much daring (and I think just a little hard), the 
jaws firm with much endurance, and that self-possessed 
bearing that one never sees in the civilised East, I knew 
he was not going back East. 

The tiny gold ear-rings might be removed, but the 
stamp of the man could not ; and men of that stamp 
are not seen in cities. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


Apache Kid Behaves Strangely at the Half-Way 
House to Kettle 

OU hear people talk of the Autumn 
feeling in the air. Well, the Autumn 
feeling was in the air as we drove 
down through the rolling foothills to 
the Half-Way House. 

My farewell to Mr. and Mrs. Laughlin had touched 
me deeply. It was only a word or two and a hand- 
shake, for when it comes to parting in the West, there 
is never any effusion — partings there are so frequent 
that people spare themselves the pain of them and 
make them brief. But nevertheless, they sting. 

There was sunlight, to be sure, all the way; but 
that Autumn feeling was there. The sound of the 
wheels fell dead on the air, and we were all moody 
and quiet. I got it into my head that I was soon to 
say farewell to Apache Kid, and that forever. He was 
exceedingly thoughtful and silent, and I wondered if 
he was meditating on the suggestion of Mrs. Laughlin 
regarding the advisability of his settling down, asking 
Miss Pinkerton for her hand, and becoming a respecta- 
ble person. 



APACHE BEHAVES STRANGELT 289 


Before we came in sight of the Half-Way House we 
heard the dull rasp of a saw, and then, topping the 
second last roll of the sandy hills and swinging round 
the base of the last one, we went rocketing up to the 
hotel. A man at the wood trestle, which stood at the 
gable-end, straightened himself and looked up at our 
approach, and I saw that he was the red-headed man 
who had “ held up ” Apache Kid at the Rest House 
on our last journey. 

Apache Kid’s face went a trifle more thoughtful at 
sight of him, but just then Miss Pinkerton appeared 
at the door to welcome us. But when we alighted I 
detected something new in her manner toward us. 
What it was I cannot exactly tell. Certainly she was 
just as demure, as open-eyed, as natural as before. 
But she did not seem to require our presence now for 
all that she welcomed us in a friendly way. There 
was that in her manner that made me think she would 
bid us farewell just as innocently and pleasantly, and 
straightway forget about us. Her welcome seemed 
a duty. 

“These are the two gentlemen I told you about, 
George,” she said to the red-headed man. “ Mr. 
Brooks,” she introduced, “but I don’t know your 
names, gentlemen, beyond just Apache Kid and 
Francis.” 

George nodded to us. 

“ I guess these names will serve,” said he. “ How 
do, gentlemen? Kind of close this eve.” 

19 


290 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

“ It is, indeed,” said Apache Kid. ** The Summer 
is ended, the harvest is past,” he quoted. 

** Yes,” said George, “ there is that feeling in the 
air, now.” 

“As if the end of all things was at hand,” said 
Apache Kid. 

He was looking George right in the eyes. 

I thought something forbidding was in their ex- 
change of glances, but then of course I had seen 
them meet before in the peculiar circumstances of 
which you know. Margaret, I think, saw nothing 
noteworthy (for all she was a woman), but then, she 
did not know that these men were acquainted ; they 
gave no sign of that. 

“ You will want a wash before you eat,” she said, 
ushering us in, and George nodded, and, “ See you 
later,” said he. 

Margaret attended to our wants herself when we 
sat down to table in the fresh dining-room. But 
there was little said until the meal was over, and she 
sat down beside us. Apache Kid seemed to be 
thinking hard. 

“Well, Miss Pinkerton,” he said at last, making 
bread pills on the table and smoothing a few crumbs 
about in little mountain ridges and then levelling 
them again. “ You remember what we told you 
about Mr. Pinkerton’s last wishes for you?” 

“ Yes,” she said, “ I was telling George what pop 
had said.” 


APACHE BEHAVES STRANGELY 291 


Apache’s eyebrows frowned a trifle, and then set- 
tled again. 

“Yes? ” he said, as though requesting an explana- 
tion of what she meant by this; but she remained 
silent 

“ O, I thought perhaps the gentleman had made 
some suggestion, when you mentioned his name just 
now,” said Apache Kid. 

But she did not yet reply, and he went on again : 

“ Well, Miss Pinkerton, I may tell you that we 
failed to find any such bonanza at the Lost Cabin 
as we had hoped for.” 

Margaret Pinkerton stiffened, and I glanced up to 
see her looking on Apache’s face with pin-points of 
eyes and a look on her face as though she said: 
“ So — you are a contemptible fellow, after all.” 

I think she had really admired Apache Kid before, 
but I surmised — a third party, the one who looks on 
and does not talk, can surmise a great deal — that, as 
the saying is, she had been tampered with. She had 
heard tales against my friend, and now doubtless be- 
lieved that she was provided with proof that he was 
a rogue. The look on her face was as though she 
were gaining confirmation. 

“Excuse me interrupting,” said George, in the 
doorway, “ but I suppose you have speciments o’ this 
ore.” 

I expected Apache Kid either to ignore the inter- 
ruption or to recognise it with some sarcasm or 


292 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


flash of anger. Instead, he turned lightly to the 
speaker. 

Ah ! ” he said, “ I had not noticed you. So you 

are interested in ” he paused, ** in mines,” he 

said. 

Margaret stiffened, and George said easily : 

“Well in this one I reckon I am.” 

“ Ah yes,” said Apache Kid. “ There has been of 
course a lot of talk about it. Yes, I have specimens.” 

He produced two pieces and handed them to 
George, and then turning to Miss Pinkerton, he said : 

“ I was going to make a suggestion to you. Miss 
Pinkerton, remembering your father’s desire that we 
— remembering the desire he expressed to us, I was 
going to make the suggestion, that, if it would not 
offend you, you would accept — May I speak before 
this gentleman ? ” 

“ Certainly,” said she, coldly. 

He bowed. 

“ I was going to suggest that you might allow me 
to transfer to your bank the sum of — let me see — ” 
and he took a paper from his pocket. It was incon- 
ceivable that he had forgotten the amount, but he 
glanced at the paper, and then looked up as though 
making a computation, but in so doing looked both 
at the young woman and at George, who was leaning 
against a neighbouring table. “ The sum of twenty 
thousand, seven hundred and forty dollars,” said he. 

There was no change on his face; he spoke as 


APACHE BEHAVES STRANGELY 293 

lightly of the sum as might a Rockefeller, and his was 
the only face that remained immobile. But then, of 
course, he was the only one who knew what was 
coming. 

George stared with a look of doubt. 

Margaret looked at Apache Kid keenly and then 
at George for a long space, thoughtfully. 

For me — I was thunderstruck. I gasped. I think 
I must have cried out something (I know that what 
I thought was : ** Why ! This is your entire share, 
apart from the turquoises,”) for the three were all 
looking at me then. 

I knew besides that he had no money left, apart 
from our Lost Cabin wealth ; for he had told me so. 
Twenty thousand, seven hundred and fifty had been 
his share of the gold and ten dollars of this he had 
paid already for his seat in the stage. He was giving 
this girl all he had. 

“ It will not go very far,” said Apache Kid, smiling. 
“ It is, after all, very little to offer, but I am in hopes 
that within a fortnight or so I may be able to perhaps 
double the amount. I know,” and now, if you like, 
I could see the sneer creep on his face, ** I know that 
women are not mercenary and I must apologise for 
speaking of money matters. It was not only money 
matters that were in Mr. Pinkerton’s mind, I believe. 
I believe it was your happiness that he was anxious 
about. I cannot pretend to myself that I could ever, 
by offering you money, wipe out the debt we owe 


294 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


him. I know that we were the cause of his death, 
though we did not fire the fatal shot. Money, to 
my mind, could never recompense for a life lost for 
others.” 

He looked up and saw Margaret’s eyes fixed on 
him — and his eyes did not remove. He gazed into 
hers unflinching, and as he looked hers filled with 
tears. He had his head raised and she seemed to 
be looking clear into his soul. Her face was very 
beautiful to see then. 

How George took all this I do not know ; for I was 
looking on the girl. 

O ! ” she said, her voice quavering. O, I think 
you are just all rights 

Then she bowed her head and wept quietly to her- 
self and as I could not bear to see her thus and do 
nothing to console her, I very softly rose to steal out. 
I knew myself a spectator, not an actor in this affair. 
Out into the red-gold evening I went and looked 
across the brown, rolling plain and Apache followed 
me and then George came after us and said quietly 
to him : 

“ What game is this you are playing? ” 

Apache Kid turned to him. “ Be guided,” he said, 
“ by a woman’s intuition. You saw that she knew 
I was playing no game.” 

And then he said very quietly : Are you aware, 
George, that if I wished I could steal her away from 
you?” 


APACHE BEHAVES STRANGELY 295 

The breath sucked into George’s nostrils in a series 
of little gasps and came forth similarly. 

“ I believe you are a devil,” he said. And if 
it was n’t for her, I ’d finish our other little matter 
right now.” 

We will let that rest — for her sake,” said Apache 
Kid. “Still, tell me, are you aware of that? Do 
you know that I am master here?” 

George’s face was pale under the sun-brown. 

We were standing there in that fashion when there 
was a sound of slow hoofs in the sand and three 
ponies came ploughing along the road, an old, dry- 
faced Indian riding behind the string. 

“You want to buy a horse?” he asked. 

Apache Kid looked up. 

“Well, we might trade,” said he. “How much 
you want for them two, this and that?” 

“ Heap cheap,” said the Indian. “ Ten dollah.” 

“ For two?” 

“ No, ten dollah for one, ten dollah for one.” 

“ It ’s a trade then,” said Apache Kid. “ Will you 
lend me twenty dollars, Francis?” 

I glanced at George and saw him looking dazed, 
uncomprehending. 

I think the Indian was surprised there was no 
attempt to beat down the price and regretted he had 
not asked more. 

When Apache Kid paid for the horses he gave me 
the halters to hold, stood absently a moment with 


296 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

puckered brows and biting lips, then drew a long 
breath and stepped into the house again. George 
did not follow but stood looking over the plain. 

‘‘What is his game?” said George. 

“ I do not know,” said I, “ but whatever it is you 
may be sure it is nothing mean.” 

George meditated and then : 

“No, I guess not,” he said. “He*s too deep for 
me, though. I don’t understand him. Did he ever 
tell you our little trouble?” 

“ No,” said I. 

“ Neither will I, then,” said he, “ and I guess he 
never will.” 

“ I would n’t think of asking him,” said I. 

“ And he would n’t think of telling,” replied George. 

And just then Apache Kid came out and Miss 
Pinkerton with him. I think it was as well that the 
verandah was in shadow. 

“ George,” she said, and I at least caught a trem- 
ble in her voice. “ Ain’t this too bad ? Apache Kid 
tells me that he has just reckoned on pulling out 
right away, — says he never meant to stay here over 
night. I wanted to lend him two of our mounts, 
but he says he ’s got these two from an Indian, and 
they ’ll serve. Do you think you could get a pair of 
saddles turned out? ” 

“ Ce’t’inly,” said George ; and away he went to rout 
out the saddles. 

I could not understand Margaret’s next remark. 


APACHE BEHAVES STRANG ELY 297 

“ If they do come down after you,” said she, “ I ’ll 
tell them 

“ Better tell them you did n’t see us go away,” 
interrupted Apache Kid. “ Better just don’t see 
us go away — and then you’ll be able to speak 
the truth. You won’t know which way we went.” 

She seemed very sad at this, but George now 
returned with the saddles, and we were soon ready 
for the way, our blankets strapped behind. 

Margaret held up her hand. 

“ Good-bye,” she said. 

Good-bye, Miss Pinkerton,” said Apache Kid. 

She stretched up and said: “You ’re too good a 

man to be ” I lost the rest, and, indeed, I was 

not meant to hear anything. 

She shook hands with me. 

“ If ever you are in them parts again,” she said, 
“ don’t forget us ; but you ’ll have to ask for Mrs. 
Brooks then.” 

Apache was holding out his hand to George, who 
took it quickly, with averted face. 

“ Good - bye, Mr. Brooks,” said Apache Kid. 
“ And, by the way, in case you might think it 
worth while to have a look at that ore in place, 
I ’ve left a map of your route to the mountain with 
Miss Pinkerton, and an account of how you might 
strike it. You can tell the sheriff of Baker you have 
it. He and Slim, that lean assistant of his, are the 
only men who know about the lie of the land ; the 


298 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

Indian tracker does n’t count. You can do what you 
like between you.” 

George seemed nonplussed. 

**This,” said he, is real good of you, sir; but I 
don’t know what you do it for.” 

“ O ! ” said Apache Kid. I told you I had n’t 
much faith in its value, you remember.” 

*‘Yes, so you did,” said George; but he seemed 
doubtful, and then suddenly took Apache Kid’s 
hand again and shook it. ** We ’re friends, we 
two,” said he. 

Why, sure, you ’re friends,” said Margaret, has- 
tily; but her eyes looked out on the road to Baker 
City, and she seemed listening for some approach. 

Apache touched his horse, and it wheeled and 
sidled a little and threw up the dust, and then sud- 
denly decided to accept this new master. 

My mount was duplicating that performance, and 
when he got started Margaret gave just one wave 
of her hand and, taking George by the arm, led him 
indoors. When we looked back, the house stood 
solitary in the sand. 

“ What does this mean? ” I said. 

But Apache Kid did not answer, and we rode on 
and on in silence while the evening darkened on the 
road to Camp Kettle. 

But the look on Apache Kid’s face forbade 
question. 


CHAPTER XXIX 

So- Long 

OU will hardly be astonished to hear 
that the saloons in Kettle are open 
night and day. Go there when you 
please, you need no “ knocking-up ” 
of sleepy attendants. The hotel door 

is never closed. 

It was long after midnight when we came into the 
place, over the very road and at the same hour and 
at much the same speed as Mr. Pinkerton must have 
ridden in pursuit of us, not a month prior to this ride 
of ours. This road from Baker City to Camp Kettle 
was the base of a triangle over which we had trav- 
elled, as it were, at the apex of which triangle was 
the Lost Cabin Mine ; and when we passed the place 
on the hillside, where we had gone so short a while 
before, something of a pang leapt in my heart. I 
bade farewell there to that terrible chapter in my 
life forever, — bade farewell there to the Lost Cabin 
Mine. 

“I will have to borrow from you again,’* said 
Apache Kid (the first speech he had spoken since 
leaving the Half-Way House), as we came loping 



300 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

into Kettle at three of the morning. ** Give me 
fifty dollars, and we ’ll settle later.” 

I told him the money was as much his as mine, 
and gave him what he asked before we reined up 
at the hotel door, where a wild-faced lad took our 
horses. An effeminate-looking youth, with that 
peculiar stamp that comes to effeminate youths in 
the West, — as though they counterbalanced their 
effeminacy, in so rugged a place, by keeping quiet, 
and so held their own among the strenuous major- 
ity, — led us to a double-bedded room (for we were 
very sleepy and desired to rest), we carrying up our 
blankets and belongings with us. He set a lamp in 
the room, wished us good-night with a smile, — for 
it was nigh morning, really a new day, — and we sat 
in silence, while on the low ceiling the smoke of the 
lamp wavered. 

The room was close, stuffy, and Apache Kid flung 
open the window and moths straightway came flutter- 
ing in, moths as large as a dollar piece, and other 
strange insects, one like a dragon-fly that rattled on 
the roof and shot from side to side of the apartment 
so fiercely that it seemed rebounding from wall to 
wall by the force of its own impact. 

Apache threw off his coat and blew out a deep 
breath. 

‘‘Warm,” he said. “It’s beastly to sleep indoors. 
No ! This just adds proof. I could n’t ever do with 
civilised ways, now. That girl,” and he nodded 


SO-LONG 301 

towards the west, “ she is mine, or she was mine — 
when she found that she had been right after all in 
her opinion of me. And she swung back to me 
more than ever strong because she had been lured 
away. But I — ” he threw up his head and cried the 
words out in a whisper, so to speak : “ I must never 
be weighed in the balance before being accepted. I 
must just be accepted. That is why I like you. 
You just accept me. But I made it all right with 
her. She will never regret having believed George’s 
stories of me for when I went back to her and put the 
roll down and said : ‘For your father’s sake, Miss 
Pinkerton — you will accept this,’ you could see that 
she wanted to ask forgiveness for having put me in 
her black books. But I put that all right.” 

“ How? ” I asked, for he had paused. 

“ Oh, I told her I was a villain, told her I fully 
expected to be arrested there and had only stopped 
to settle my promise to her father. It was a different 
thing for me to tell her I was a villain from another 
telling her that. When a villain tells his villainy to 
the ear of a woman he becomes almost a hero to her. 
She begged me to change my ways, and I promised 
that for her sake I would. Quite romantic, eh? A 
touch of Sydney Carton — eh?” and he laughed. 
“And now she will remember me, if she does not 
indeed forget me, as a good fellow gone wrong, and 
thank God she has so good a husband as George. 
And George is not so bad a fellow. He can appre- 


302 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

date his master when he meets him. That is one 
good point about George. George is like the lion in 
the cage, the lion that roars in rage after the tamer 
has gone and determines to slay him on his next 
visit. But on the next visit he goes through his 
tricks as usual. It ’s a pleasure at least to know that 
George at last was forced to hold out his hand to me 
and call himself my friend. He doesn’t know why 
he did. He ’ll remember and wonder and he’ll never 
understand. That day that he came in and held me 
up, — you remember? — I said to myself: ‘You 
come to kill me to-day, but the day will come, not 
when I will crush you, but when you will come to me 
just like my little poodle dog.’ ” 

He broke off and smote the buzzing insect to the 
floor as it blundered past his face (he was sitting on a 
chair with his arms folded on the back) and drew his 
foot across it. 

“And he came, didn’t he?” he added. “My 
poodle dog ! 

“ But after all,” he said, after a pause, “ a woman 
that could be moved by my little poodle dog could 
never be the woman for me. When I look for a 
woman it must be one who does not doubt me — and 
who does not fear me. She did not fear me and that 
was why I thought — Ah well, you see, she doubted 
me. But let ’s to bed.” 

So we put out the light and turned in. 

But I lay some time considering that Apache Kid 


SO-LONG 303 

was not the domineering man his words might have 
caused one to think. He covered up a deal of what 
was in his heart with a froth of words. 

Next day (or I should say, later in that day), we 
continued our journey, after a few hours’ sleep and a 
monstrous breakfast; but never another word was 
spoken on the matter of the previous night and in 
the bright afternoon we came into Kettle River Gap 
and found that the ** east-bound ” was due at three in 
the afternoon. 

In the hotel to which we repaired for refreshment 
Apache Kid wrote a letter to a dealer in New York, 
a letter which I was to deliver in person, carrying 
with me the turquoises. 

“ One gets far better prices in New York than in 
any of the western towns,” explained Apache Kid. 
“ You can rely on this fellow, too. We are old friends, 
and he will do the square thing. You can send on 
half the amount to me, deducting what you have lent 
me.” 

Oh, nonsense ! ” said I. 

“ Deducting what you have lent me,” he repeated. 

Twenty dollars at the Half-Way House and fifty at 
Camp Kettle. That makes seventy.” 

“ You will need some more,” said I. 

“ No,” said he. ** I have still almost all the fifty, 
of course, and I can sell the two pintos for what I 
paid for them. Don’t worry me. I have never been 
obliged to a soul in my life for anything.” 


304 


THE LOST CABIN MINE 


But looking up and catching my eye looking sadly 
on him he smiled and: “Humour me,” he said, 
“ humour me in this.” 

When the letter was written he handed it to me, 
open, and said : 

“ Well, that is all, I think, until we hear the east- 
bound whistle.” 

My heart was in my mouth. 

“ That other matter? ” I said. 

“What other? ” said he. 

“ You wanted me to do something for you in the 
old country.” 

“True,” said he, and sat pondering; and then 
coming to a conclusion he wrote a name and address 
on another sheet, and putting it in an envelope, which 
he sealed, he said : “ When you reach home you can 
open that, and — it should be easy enough to find 
out who lives there. If they are gone, you can trace 
them without anyone knowing what you are doing. 
They must never know about me, however. You will 
promise? ” 

“ I promise,” said I. 

“ You can write to — let me see — say, where shall 
I go now? — say Santa Fe — to be called for.” 

“Had you not better come home?” I asked half- 
fearfully, and he looked at me as twice I had seen him 
look, — once, when he silenced the “ Dago ” livery- 
stable keeper ; once, when he silenced the sheriff. I 
knew Apache Kid liked me; but at that glance I 


SO-LONG 305 

knew he had never let me quite close to himself. 
There was a barrier between him and all men. But 
the look passed, and said he, slowly and definitely : 

** I can never go home.” 

We went out into the air and sat silent till the 
east-bound whistled and whistled and screamed nearer 
and nearer. 

It was while we sat there that I remembered that 
he had advertised for Jackson’s relatives, and asked 
what he would do if they were heard of. 

He had evidently forgotten about that, for he 
seemed put out, and then remarked that he would 
send them his share of the turquoises, still to be 
disposed of. 

“ But you ” I began, and he held up his hand. 

‘‘ I don’t want the stuff, anyhow,” said he. “ Now — 
don’t worry me. Don’t ask me questions. What 
I like about you is that you take me for granted. 
Don’t spoil the impression of yourself you have 
given me by wanting to know how I will get on, and 
thinking me foolish for what I intend to do.” He 
looked round on me. “ Yes,” said he, I like you. 
Do you know that the fact that you had never asked 
me what George Brooks and I were enemies for 
made me your most humble servant? Would you 
like to hear that story?” 

I nodded. 

“ Well, well,” he said, and laughed. “ That makes 
me like you all the more. You are really interested, 
20 


3o6 the lost cabin MINE 

and yet are polite enough not to ask questions. Yes 
— that 's the sort of man I like.” 

But he had no intention of telling me that affair, — 
just chuckled to himself softly and remarking, “ That 
must remain a mystery,” he lapsed again into silence. 

And then the train whistled at the last curve, shot 
into sight, and came thundering and screaming into 
the depot. 

“ Oh ! Apache Kid,” said I, “ I cannot go to-day. 
I must wait till to-morrow.” 

** That is a pity,” said he, “ for then you would 
have to wait here alone all to-morrow. I go West 
with to-morrow morning’s ‘ west-bound.’ ” 

Ah, then,” said I, “ I will go with this one ; for I 
could not stand the loneliness here with you flying 
away from me.” 

“ No? ” he said, half inquiringly; and then he sur- 
veyed me, interested, and said again, No, not so 
easily as I can stand your departure — I suppose.” 
But he looked away as he spoke. 

My belongings lay just in the doorway, ready to 
hand, and these he lifted, boarding the train with me 
and finding me a seat. This was no sooner done than 
the conductor outside intoned his All aboard ! ” 

Apache Kid snatched my hand. 

Well,” said he, ‘‘ in the language of the country — 
so-long ! ” 

I had no word to say. I took his hand ; but he 
gave me only the fingers of his, and, whirling about, 


SO-LONG 307 

lurched down the aisle of the car, for the train had 
already started, and the door swung behind him. I 
tried to raise the window beside me, but it was 
fast, and by the time I had the next one raised and 
looked out, all the depot buildings were in the haze 
of my tears, in the midst of which I saw half a dozen 
blurred, waving hands, and though I waved into that 
haze I do not know whether Apache Kid was one of 
those who stood there or not. 

So the last I really saw of Apache Kid was his 
lurching shoulder as he passed out of the swinging 


car. 


CHAPTER XXX 

And Last 


r was with a full heart that I sat down, 
oblivious of all other occupants of the 
car. I sat dazed, the rattle of the 
wheels in my ears, and the occasional 
swishing sound without, when we rat- 
tled across some trestle bridge above a foaming creek 
hastening down out of the hills. Sunset came, glow- 
ing red on the tops of the trees on either hand. The 
Pintsch lamps were lit, and glimmered dim in that 
glow of the sunset that filled the coaches. It was not 
yet quite dark when we left Republic Creek, the gate 
city of the mountains, behind. The sunset suddenly 
appeared to wheel in the sky, and piled itself up again 
to the right of the track. We were looping and twin- 
ing down out of the hills. I went out onto the rear 
platform for a last look at them. Already the plains 
were rolling away from us on either side, billowy, 
wind-swept, sweet-scented in the dusk. Behind was 
the long darkness, north and south, of the mountains. 
I gazed upon it till the glow faded, and the sinister, 
serrated ridge was only a long, thin line of black on 
the verge of the prairie. 



AND LAST 


309 


Then I turned inwards again to the car and lay 
down to sleep, while we rolled on and on through the 
night over the open, untroubled plains. 

But sleep on a train is an unquiet sleep, and often 
I would waken, imagining myself still in the heart of 
the mountains, sometimes speaking to Apache Kid, 
even Donoghue. 

Old voices spoke; the Laughlins, the sheriff, my 
two fellow-travellers spoke to me in that uneasy slum- 
ber, and then I would awaken to answer and find my- 
self in the swinging car alone, and a great rush of 
emotion would fill my heart. 

Two items still remain to be told. 

At New York I found the address to which Apache 
Kid had directed me. A sphinx of a gentleman read 
the letter I gave him, looked me over, and then asked : 
“ The turquoises? You have them with you? " 

I produced the bag, and he scrutinised them all 
singly, with no change on his face, rang a bell, and 
bade the attendant, who came in response, to bring 
him scales. He weighed each separately, touched 
them with his tongue, held them up to the light, and 
noted their values on paper. He must have been, 
indeed, a man Apache Kid could trust. 

‘‘ Will you have notes or gold ? ” he asked. The 
sum is two hundred thousand dollars, and I am in- 
structed in this note, which as it is open you will know 
entitles you to half, to pay you on the spot.’* 


310 THE LOST CABIN MINE 


I asked for a bill of exchange on the Bank of Scot- 
land. He bowed and obeyed my request without 
further speech, but when he rose to usher me to the 
door his natural curiosity caused him to say : 

“ Do you know how your friend came by these? ” 

** I do,” said I ; but I thought to give this quiet 
man a Roland for his Oliver, seeing he was so much 
of a sphinx, and I said no more save that. 

He smiled. 

** Quite right,” said he. ** And did you leave your 
friend well?” he asked, smiling on me in a fatherly 
fashion. 

“ In the best of health,” I said. 

** I see I have to remit to Santa Fe,” said he. “ He 
did not say where he was going after that, did he? I 
can hardly expect him to stay there long.” 

“ No, he did not say,” I replied. 

**Ah! Doubtless I shall hear of him when he 
thinks necessary,” and he bowed me out and shook 
hands with me at the door. 

The second item that still remains to be told is of 
my opening of the second letter that Apache Kid 
gave me. There was no difficulty in finding the 
address of his people ” which this contained. But 
if the address astonished me, I was certainly less as- 
tonished than deeply moved, when, by w'atching the 
residence, I found that his mother still lived, — a 
stately, elderly lady, with silver hair. 

By careful inquiries, and by some observation, I 


AND LAST 


lil 

found that there were two sisters also in the house, and 
once I saw all three out shopping in Princes Street, very 
tastefully but plainly dressed, and it struck me to the 
heart, with a sadness I cannot tell, to think that here 
was I, who could step up to them and say: “ Madam, 
your son yet lives ; ladies, your brother is alive,” and 
yet to know that my lips were sealed ; that for some 
reason Apache Kid could never again come home. 

They noticed me staring at them, and, remember- 
ing my manners, I looked away. This intelligence I 
wrote to Apache Kid (to be called for at Santa Fe), 
as he had desired. But I never heard any word in 
reply. The letter, however, was not returned, so I 
presume he received it. 

I do not know whether the fact that I am bound 
by a promise causes me, in contradictory-wise, to de- 
sire all the more to speak to these three of Apache 
Kid, — how alien his name sounds here in Edinburgh 
of all places ! — but I do know that I long to speak 
to them. In Apache Kid’s younger sister, especially 
in her winsome face, there is something I cannot 
describe that moves my heart. Once I saw her with 
her sister eating strawberries on one of the roof-cafes 
in Princes Street, whither I had gone with my mother. 
My mother noticed the drifting of my eyes and looked 
at the girl and looked back at me and smiled, and 
shook her head on me, and said : 

She is a sweet girl, but do not stare ; you have 
lost your manners in America ! ” 


312 THE LOST CABIN MINE 

She did not understand, and I could not explain. 
But her words, spoken jestingly, took me back to 
that conversation with Apache Kid on the stage- 
coach, after we had left the Half-Way-to-Kettle 
House, when he delivered his opinion on the tran- 
sition period in the West; and I wondered if he had 
yet looked up Carlyle’s remark about the manners of 
the backwoods. 

My little fortune had to be explained in some way, 
but you may be sure I told nothing of the terrors of 
the journey that we undertook in the gathering of it. 
The common fallacy that fortunes are to be picked 
up in America, by any youth who cares to go 
a-plucking there, helped me greatly with most folk, 
and I never was required to tell the bloody story of 
the Lost Cabin Mine. 

But now that they who might have wept for my 
share in that business have gone beyond all weeping 
and grieving I can publish the tale with no misgiv- 
ings; for the only fear that haunts me, as I go my 
ways through the world, is lest I give pain to any of 
these quiet, cloistered hearts, who, in their blissful 
and desirable ignorance, live apart in peace, not 
knowing how barbaric, how sad, how full of unrest, 
and how blood-bespattered the world still is. 


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Cfte 

Tntemational Studio 

An Illustrated Magazine of Fine and Applied Art 


Published by JOHN LANE COMPANY 
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